So you’re eager to play cards for money, much like in the Wild Wild West, but want to remove the threat of guns pointed at you under the table ? Well then you’ve landed on the right website, as we cater to the safest remaining US – Friendly gaming sites. These United States Texas Holdem sites for real money are enjoyable at no risk, and are non-rigged for those seeking to make real money deposits. In fact, much of the best rising poker phenoms have accounts with these brands. Where else could we play, considering the tightening selection offered to USA -Facing players.

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Legal Status of Online Poker in the United States

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Online gambling in general has been a dominant issue throughout the United States ever since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed in 2006. Since then, American online poker players were limited in their selection of safe, secure card gaming sites that would accept their memberships, process their deposits and grant their withdrawals in a timely manner. In 2011, the situation utterly imploded.

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And by 1910, OH establishments hosting gambling activities like real money betting on Texas Hold’em poker were outlawed. Ultimately, the gambling ban did more harm than good, as it gave rise to Ohio’s burgeoning underground gambling and poker betting scene.

The Black Friday of Online Poker

April 15, 2011 – known throughout the online poker community as Black Friday – the US Department of Justice officially seized control of the world’s largest, US-facing online poker sites, including titans PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. Not only did it leave American poker players with no entirely trustworthy options for playing their favorite card games online, it resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars being frozen in cyber accounts by the US government. From casual players to high-profile poker pros, there were countless individuals who could no longer access their tied-up poker funds. To this day, American ex-members of Full Tilt Poker are still waiting to receive their funds.

Push for Online Poker Legislation on the Rise

1. History of legal online poker in the US. Legal US online poker sites debuted on April 30, 2013. Ultimate Poker was the site that made history. Nevada was the first state to host fully legal online poker. Texas Hold ’em was the only game spread at Ultimate Poker during its first six months in business.
2. Soon after, New Jersey followed suit and since then the three states are the only three out of 50 where online poker players can play their trade and test their skills for real money. To get the updated poker sites list visit top10pokersites.net where poker rooms are reviewed and rated by professional poker players.

After Black Friday, it became more apparent that the need for online poker regulation on a federal level was paramount. Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev), along with Texas Representative Joe Barton, took long strides in congress, but were struck down time and again. Unfortunately, that continues to be the story in regards to federal regulations, but as the timeline progressed, individual states began realizing a lot more opportunities.

Nevada, with the fierce desire to be the online poker mecca of the United States, actually went so far as to legalize online poker in June of 2011, just two months after the Black Friday incident, despite the fact that online gambling was still outlawed across the nation by federal law. Ever ingenious, the law makers in Nevada passed an online poker bill with the stipulation that it wouldn’t go into effect until the very moment the US government made it legal to do so.

US DOJ Reverse Stance against Online Poker

Nevada’s impatience was rewarded and a glimmer of hope was delivered to the card gaming masses when the US government unexpectedly reversed its stance on the legalities of online poker. The federal case against offshore operators revolving around Black Friday was based upon the UIGEA, which interpreted all forms of ‘remote gambling’ as being illegal, per the Wire Act 1961 (which, at the time, related to telephone betting, as the internet was not even a twinkle in the eye of technology developers). On December 23, 2011, the DOJ overturned its former ruling that the Wire Act outlawed online gambling, opening the doors for individual states to enact their own laws in regards to online poker and other gambling formats.

Immediately, the American online poker community was abuzz with speculations as to what states, if any, would enact online poker laws, and it didn’t take legislators long to ink proposals and push them towards the higher rungs of their state capitols. Due to current federal laws, states would only be given the right to decriminalize online gambling activities based on their current territorial laws, games offered and, more interestingly, on an intrastate level. That meant if a state that already allowed certain forms of gambling were to legalize the activity via the internet, they could only offer those gambling amusements to people within the borders of that state. That issue alone raised questions as to whether singular states had enough interested, legal-age population to support an online poker/casino industry.

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States Race to Legalize Online Gambling

As we already know, Nevada jumped the gun, legalizing online poker (but no other forms of online gambling for the time being) 6 months prior to the US concluding that individual states could decide the issue for themselves. On the morning of June 28th, 2012, Delaware became the first state to pass a bill legalizing online gambling in multiple forms, including online poker, casino games and the state lottery.

Law makers made quick work of the internet gaming bill, and Governor Jack Markell gave it his John Hancock the very morning it arrived on his desk, not even 24 hours after it was approved by the state Senate, (albeit by a very thin margin of votes). It took more than a year for the Diamond State to get from point A to point B, finally launching it iGaming market on October 31, 2013.

Next, it was New Jersey’s turn to push for legal online gambling. Gov. Chris Christie refused to sign any bill that was too hastily revised, vetoing two attempts before he finally out his signature on a more thoughtfully detailed version of the New Jersey online gambling bill in February 2013.

First Legal US Online Poker Site goes Live

It was a long road forged by millions of supportive hands that lead to the first real victory for American online poker players when Ultimate Poker dealt its first real-money poker hand on Tuesday, April 30, 2013. Based in Nevada under the operative wing of the Station Casinos group, Ultimate Poker was the only US regulated online poker room for 5 months leading up to the Nevada launch of WSOP.com on September 19, 2013.

In the two years that have passed since, Delaware and New Jersey have launched numerous online poker and casino websites, and Ultimate Poker made history once more by becoming the first US regulate iGaming site to go out of business. New Jersey’s Ultimate Poker and Ultimate Casino websites shut down in September of 2014, followed by the closure of Ultimate Poker Nevada in November.

Other States Waver on Online Poker Regulation

Two states, California and Pennsylvania, are seriously considering the regulation of online poker.

In California, in-fighting between lawmakers, commercial card rooms and tribal gaming operators has prevented any bill from gaining traction. There are currently four bills moving through the legislative process (see below), but until all parties can come to a compromise, the outlook looks bleak.

• AB 9 – Assemblyman Mike Gatto (excludes horse tracks, bad actors)
• AB 167 – Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (includes horse tracks, lenient on bad actors)
• AB 431 – Assemblyman Adam Gray (invokes legalization only, no specific regulatory guidelines)
• SB 238 – Senator Isadore Hall III (mirror text of AB 431)

In Pennsylvania, a dire need to reinvigorate gambling revenue is the key force behind a recently introduced bill to regulate online gambling in the states. It is aimed at giving licensed, land-based casinos the right to operate online poker and casino websites.

• HB 649 – Rep. John Payne (regulates online poker and casino games)

State by State Account of US Online Poker Laws Please choose a state below to learn more
Alabama	Lousiana	Ohio
Alaska	Maine	Oklahoma
Arizona	Maryland	Oregon
Arkansas	Massachusetts	Pennsylvania
California	Michigan	Rhode Island
Colorado	Minnesota	South Carolina
Connecticut	Mississippi	South Dakota
Delaware	Missouri	Tennessee
Florida	Montana	Texas
Georgia	Nebraska	Utah
Hawaii	Nevada	Vermont
Idaho	New Hampshire	Virginia
Illinois	New Jersey	Washington
Indiana	New Mexico	West Virginia
Iowa	New York	Wisconsin
Kansas	North Carolina	Wyoming
Kentucky	North Dakota	_

Are you looking for the best US legal online poker sites or a real money poker app? If the answer is yes, then you came to the right place. This is one of our many online poker reviews where you can find more about the best online poker options.

Without further ado, keep reading to discover how to play the best online poker for money and how to form an online poker strategy. So, let’s get started!

Best Legal Online Poker Sites

1. WSOP
2. PartyPoker
3. PokerStars
4. Pala Poker
5. 888poker
6. Global Poker

Is online poker legal? It's not always the same as legal online casinos and legal online sportsbooks. All new players who decide to explore the vast universe of real money poker sites should know that federally, online poker sites are illegal. However, on the individual level, online poker is legal in some of the states.

Some websites such as Global Poker (which is a sweepstakes poker site) are allowed in 49 out of 50 US states. Only Washington does not allow it. At the moment of writing our online poker reviews, only four states offer legal online poker websites in the United States. These are the following: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware.

For more information about some of the available sites, make sure to consult our Global Poker review.

US Legal Online Poker: State by State

Is online poker legal in your state? If the answer is no, keep in mind that the situation can change pretty quickly. Unsurprisingly, Nevada was the leader of regulated online poker. Once the ice was broken, the domino-effect followed.

One by one, many states tried or are still trying to pass the legislation. As you can see, some of them even succeeded. The last one to recently pass online poker is West Virginia, and we expect more legal US poker sites to be launched in the future.

When it comes to future predictions, we believe that chances are pretty good for some of the states to overcome all the legal obstacles and finally launch real money poker sites so their residents become able to play legal online poker.

Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, New York are some of the states that’ll probably make some innovations when it comes to the possibilities of playing poker online. These are the states that have active supporters of online poker in the state senate.

What’s more, regulated real money poker sites in neighboring states can only have a positive effect on public opinion. Additionally, within the borders of the aforementioned states, you can find a considerable number of land-based casinos.

Many of them come with the best online poker rooms where you can play various variants of poker, including the most popular one - Texas Hold’em. In other words, these poker offline options make it easier to launch legal poker sites and eventually start to offer legal online poker.

States Where Legal Online Poker Seems Like a Distant Dream

From this point of view, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah are just some of the states where we can see a certain legislative hostility towards online gambling. Therefore, we don’t believe that we won’t be able to play Texas Hold’em online there for quite some time.

Sweepstakes Legal Online Poker - Play Poker Free No Matter Which State You’re In

As said before, Global Poker, a sweepstakes legal online poker site, can be accessed in all US states except for the state of Washington. This legal online poker platform was launched in 2106, and since then, many players use its services. The virtual currency gaming business model is what makes it unique.

Instead of playing for real money, players play poker free, using gold coins or sweeps cash. That’s why Global Poker often appears when players search for “play poker free” or “play poker online, free”.

To understand how sweepstakes poker works, let’s start with some poker basics and make sure to understand sweeps poker terminology clearly. There’s a difference between gold coins and sweeps cash, and there’s a reason for which “play poker online, free” is actually a bit of a misnomer here.

Gold Coins are the name for the virtual currency in Global Poker, and they are equivalent to what regular legal online poker sites usually call “play money”. In other words, you can’t cash them out, but you can use them to play Texas Hold’em online or participate in some of the available tournaments with other players. On the other hand, “$weeps cash” is a promotional, virtual currency that can be cashed out through PayPal.

To sum up, you can buy gold coins that don’t have any monetary value and can’t be cashed out. “$weeps cash” is obtained as free of charge once you buy Gold Coins. Because of this virtual currency online poker model, Global Poker is not quite considered an online gambling activity. Therefore, it’s allowed in almost all of the US.

Where Can I Play Legal Online Poker in the US?

Pennsylvania is the last state where online poker had become legal when PokerStars was launched there at the end of 2019. Right now that’s also the only available option to play online poker for money in Pennsylvania.

If we don’t count Global Poker, which can be accessed in 49 states, all the other legal online poker sites come with pretty restricted access. For example, Pala Poker and PartyPoker are only available in the state of New Jersey.

However, they are not the only NJ poker sites one can access. WSOP, America's top legal online poker site, is available in the Garden State, and it’s also accessible to all Nevada online poker fans as well. Likewise, PokerStars NJ, available both independently and within the FOX Bet app

Claim the WSOP promo code in New Jersey and Nevada to get a $1,000 signup bonus!

Where Can I Play Poker Live?

Most of the land-based casinos across different states include special poker rooms where you can play live poker. Playing Texas Hold’em online is definitely the most popular option. After all, poker is an American thing, so it’s no wonder to see it available in the vast majority of mortar and bricks casinos.

In fact, instead of listing all the states where you can sit back, relax and try out your luck with live poker, it’s better to list all those where you can’t play poker online. It’ll be easier to remember this list:

• Alaska
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• New Hampshire
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah

We must add that in Texas, private poker clubs aren’t forbidden. As long as no house makes a profit from the game, poker can be played in private places for fun.

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US Online Poker Basics

When talking about the current status of legal US poker sites, there are two especially important laws that you should be aware of. Let’s take a look at these two federal laws that govern online poker in the country.

The Wire Act

The first one is the Interstate Wire Act of 1961, often called the Federal Wire Act. As you can see, it passed long before online poker or even the internet existed. However, it prohibits certain types of betting businesses to operate via wired communications.

In 2011, the US Department of Justice concluded that the scope of the act was limited to sporting events. Therefore, states, where online poker is now regulated, found that the bill didn’t apply to online poker nor other forms of gambling.

However, in 2019, the US Department of Justice reversed its opinion. The new opinion concludes that the Wire Act applies to all types of online gambling.

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The UIGEA

The other relevant law is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) from 2006. This law made it illegal for US banks to proceed with transactions for offshore gambling companies. That’s how they were pushed out of the market.

History of US Legal Online Poker

Online casinos started to appear back in 1994. They were usually situated in Antigua or the Isle of Man. However, the vast majority of their users were US-based customers. Two years later, in 1996, online gambling was also brought to the North American market soil.

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission was established just outside Montreal. They started issuing licenses, and pretty soon, it was possible to find hundreds of new online gambling websites.

Once again, two years later and again in Canada, the first-ever poker online website saw the light of day. Planet Poker was the favorite source of fun to thousands of Americans who were spending endless hours playing the first real-money online Texas Hold’em.

Over the next few years, thanks to technological advances, better online poker software was developed, while the number of websites kept increasing. These online poker operators also started to offer various tournaments and cash games and got a solid fan base all over the world.

The Industry Kept Growing & Then It Collapsed

Even though there were different interpretations of the law, especially of the famous Wire Act, the newly developed industry kept growing.

The year 2003 is especially important in the evolution of online poker. Using an account from Tennessee, Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker after participating in the event through an online satellite. In Chris Moneymaker's case, we guess, it's okay to say that name determines destiny.

This online poker strategy was live-streamed on ESPN. Suddenly, the whole nation knew about Chris's story. A good number of Americans were hoping to be the next. All of a sudden, poker was everywhere on TV. Live games were followed carefully, and commercial breaks had one purpose: promoting online poker for money and playing Texas Hold 'em online.

The great number of promoted sites were, in fact, offshore online poker sites. A lot of them disappeared from American browsers after Congress passed the above-mentioned UIGEA in 2006.

However, even though a lot of sites weren't accessible anymore, online poker couldn't be erased that easily. Some of the offshore gambling companies had found a way around the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, but not for long.

In 2011, some of the largest online poker operators, including PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet, were accused of violating UIGEA and money laundering. These websites were definitely excluded from the significant US online poker market, which seemed to come to an end at the time.

Legal Online Poker Sites Rise Again

Also in 2011, the DOJ released a legal opinion that the Federal Wire act exclusively applied only to one form of gambling: sports betting. A few states saw this as a possibility, paving the way to regulated online casinos and legal US poker sites.

In 2012, Delaware was the first state that managed to do just that. Then, in December 2013, Nevada followed the example of passing online poker legislation. A week later, the Garden State became the third to legalize online gambling, and plans for NJ poker sites were made.

The first-ever regulated US online poker site was launched in Nevada in April 2013. Delaware and NJ poker sites went live that same year, a few months later. In 2017, Pennsylvania became the fourth state to join this group. West Virginia is the fifth state where online poker was regulated in 2019. Probably, more states will try to do the same thing in the near future.

Which State is Next?

Is online poker legal in California or New York? This is one of the frequently asked questions that people search for in the USA. They also search for different terms of poker terminology that sound unfamiliar to them. However, that’s another question that we could discuss on some other occasion.

Let’s get back to our question of legal online poker sites and the possible new markets in the USA. Michigan has made significant efforts to legalize online gambling, particularly online poker, while California, New York, and Massachusetts also seem to be moving in the right direction.

Real Money Poker App: How to Find the Best Poker App

It doesn’t matter if you are a Pennsylvania online poker fan or a regular visitor of NJ poker sites, the good news is that you can play poker whenever you want, anywhere within the borders of one or the other state.

Many of the best online poker websites have launched a dedicated real money poker app that you can easily download and install on your device. The best poker apps are available for both iOS and Android operating systems.

In order to find the best poker app, make sure you visit one of the websites we listed at the beginning of our review.

Also, before you replace your poker offline adventure with the one that can be found on the internet, make sure to read some of the online poker reviews and get to know the poker terminology used by the players worldwide. After a brief introduction to the poker basics, it’s time to create your own online poker strategy and join one of the legal online poker communities!