Legal US Poker Sites

First of all, we are not lawyers, we are poker players. While the US Department of Justice and the FBI have gone after online poker sites that service US players, particularly the payment processors that they have used, many believe it’s the DOJ and FBI that have acted illegally. We don’t know.

What we do know is that if you reside in the US, there is one online poker site we know of that is ABSOLUTELY legal – and that’s Club WPT. ClubWPT poker works on a subscription basis, where you pay a monthly fee to play online poker. And the poker games you play in are not really real money games, you don’t have to make a deposit to play in their tournaments. But you can win real cash! You can read more about the ClubWPT download at FlopTurnRiver.com.

ClubWPT uses “sweepstakes” rules, which are legal in most states in the US. So you are playing poker for “sweepstake cash prizes” (whatever legal bullshit) – but what that means is that you can play and win cash in their poker tournaments!

Check them out below, they do have a free trial:

clubwpt download

There are also regular, online poker sites still accepting US players. Many feel these sites are risky because the DOJ may step in and roundhouse kick the door closed, seize funds, and then you’re stuck waiting to see what will happen with your $50 bankroll. I don’t know, proceed at your own risk!

Online poker is under the legal microscope and many online poker sites do not accept American players since April 15th, 2011, the so-called “Black Friday” when the Department of Justice came in and seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UltimateBet.com, and AbsolutePoker.com. However, we have compiled a list of US poker sites that still accept players from the US. All of the poker rooms you see below accept real money bets from all US players.  Check out our top rated US poker sites:

Click To Join! Poker Room Bonus Code Bonus Description
Bovada Poker Automatic 100% Initial Deposit Bonus up to $1000
Luvin Poker LP1000 200% up to $1,000 and 40% rakeback!
Cake Poker FTR 110% up to $600 + 33% Rakeback!
Broadway Tables FTRLTP 110% Initial Deposit Up to $600 + 33% Rakeback For Life!

Let’s take a look at the major moments of legal history in the evolution of the world of online poker in the United States.

Online gambling is nearly as old as the internet itself, and many of today’s leading players played an early form of online poker of very early computer networks in the late 1980s, including Chris Ferguson. When the World Wide Web was born in the early 1990s, online sports betting appeared almost immediately to take advantage of the legal gray area of gambling with real money over a computer network. Shortly thereafter, online casinos began popping up during the mid 1990s, and the first poker channels appeared on IRC in the years to come, which was followed by the first online poker rooms at Planet Poker. Famous poker player and writer Mike Caro was the spokesman for Planet Poker, and the first official hand of a cash game was dealt online on January 1, 1998.

Players and poker room areas knew that they were entering into a murky area of the law but plowed ahead. Due to the fact that online a small number of poker players were playing for real cash at this time, the only serious legal issues arose when small poker sites disappeared with players money. The largest such problem occurred in 2000 when Poker Spot claimed they were unable to process credit card transactions and stopped processing payouts to their players. Due to the legal gray area over online poker, player’s in the United States realized that they had no legal recourse in the matter and simply had to accept their losses. Thanks to the creation of various third part payment processing firms, there has never been a similar problem since Poker Spot where players lost their funds in this manner.

The evolution of poker continued while law makers in the United States seemed hesitant to address the legal implications of the growing trend of playing poker for real money online. Party Poker and PokerStars were the first mega-poker servers to appear in 2001, and the gaming industry earned some $82 million dollars that year in online poker revenue. In 2002, the United States Court of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that found the Federal Wire Act clearly outlawed online sports betting, but this act did not apply to other forms of gambling, including online poker. In March 2003, an assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice spoke before the Senate Banking Committee regarding the concerns the DOJ had of the relationship between online gambling and money laundering.

Later that year, amateur poker player rode a $40 buy-in a satellite game at PokerStars to make it to the final table of the main event of the World Series of Poker, and the golden era of online poker truly begun.

By 2005, the revenue from online poker rose to $2.4 billion dollars, and law makers could no longer ignore the elephant in the room. In order to distance themselves from any legal issues, Google and Yahoo severed all ties with online poker advertising in 2004, followed by credit card companies, American banks and PayPal. In February 2005, a federal district court dismissed a lawsuit from the gambling portal site Casino City claiming that promoting online poker was protected by the First Amendment on the grounds that they were promoting an illegal activity. Law makers in North Dakota immediately reacted by passing a bill in the house to legalize regulated online poker in the state, but the state senate refused to pass the bill in recognition that the federal court had indicated online gambling violated federal law, a decision that was influenced by a letter from the DOJ to the state senate on the matter.

Definitive legislation pertaining to online poker was officially signed into law by George W. Bush on October 13, 2006 as a provision of the Safe Port Act known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA. The UIGEA made it clearly illegal for players or site operators to “place, receive or transmit a bet or wage” over the internet in any state where gambling is prohibited by law. Within months, most of the major publicly traded online poker rooms shut down operations in the United States, while others began to only offer poker rooms based on play money to American poker online players. A handful of sites set up operations in countries without extradition treaties with the United States and continue to allow players to play online poker for real money from the United States. A number organizations have been founded to overturn the UIGEA, most notably the Poker Players Alliance.

In 2010, a couple of bills are in the works to repeal the UIGEA, and provide clear legalization and regulation of online poker in the US.

However, on April 15th 2011, the government acted on the leading US poker rooms servicing Americans. While the Department of Justice temporarily closed down these sites, many others are still offering real money poker games to US players. While the legal issues are sorted out, there are still plenty of poker sites USA options. Check out this list of the best US poker sites to choose from!

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So now what? Keep up with the latest news in the online poker industry as the legal landscape evolves before our eyes: