US Poker Sites

Since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (Or UIGEA for short) was passed in 2006, trying to find a quality site to play poker on has become a bit of a minefield for US players.

With so many major software providers pulling out of the States, it is increasingly difficult to play poker online legally. To make things even more complicated, various rooms have sprung up in recent years to try to fill this void, but the quality of their software and customer support leaves a lot to be desired.

The good news is though that there are still some quality US Friendly Poker rooms out there, which is where this page comes in. All of the sites you see listed below accept US poker players and have been thoroughly tested by our expericenced team of players.

In short, if you're a poker player living in the US, you can sign up to any of these rooms knowing that not only is it legal for you to be playing there, but you can also rely on the fact that you'll be treated in the right way when you sign up:

Best US Poker Site

- Compatiblepoker did a decent job of covering the US situation over the past 8 years, you can see what happened Here.

What is the UIGEA?

The UIGEA was a bill passed in 2006 which sets some very strict boundaries when it comes to online gambling in the United States.

In short, the bill enforces banks to decline any transactions that they can identify as having come from an online gambling website. This is actually a lot harder than it sounds as the vast majority of online poker sites use 3rd parties to process any deposits and withdrawals meaning that it's very hard for US banks to separate gambling transactions from non-gambling transactions.

What's very important to understand though is that no where in this bill does it say that online poker is illegal in the US. It only states that US banks can not process transactions from gaming websites.

Targeted enforcement of the UIGEA bill was due to be passed on December 1st 2009, although this was pushed back six months at the last minute. Many experts are predicting that this is an indication that banks are refusing to try to monitor every transaction that passes through their doors, which could provide an interesting twist to this saga.

One unfortunate side effect of teh UIGEA bill is that various indidual states have ammended their own laws to make online poker illegal within their jurisdiction. These states are listed below.

Which US states have banned online poker?

At the time of writing, the following states have made it illegal to play online poker within their borders:

So why do some sites still accept US players?

That's a very good question, and one which is often asked by US poker players the country over.

The short answer is that when the UIGEA bill was passed, some poker rooms got very nervous that the US was about to ban online poker altogether and therefore took the decision to pull out of the US market altogether.

The most obvious example of this is Party Poker, who were one of the largest online poker rooms operating in the States at the turn of the century. Being a public company, they had a legal responsibility to their share holders which they had to uphold.

The likes of Pokerstars and Full Tilt are privately own companies who don't have to answer to any share holders. Instead, they have the freedom to make desicions which they deem to be in the best interest of the business, and to be fair to those decisions seem to be working out pretty well as both companies have seen a real surge in traffic over the last few years but Full Til Poker is now closed, and Pokerstars does not accept US players any longer.