Devoted to tracking what US poker sites are staying open or closing to the United States in addition to breaking news coverage solely about the US. This page has gotten over 32,500,000 hits over the five years since the UIGEA passed due to unbiased, accurate information.
(click here for updates) Updated January 27, 2011, 12:05apm
NOTICE: Major sites such as PokerStars, Party Poker and Full Tilt Poker no longer accept players from the USA.
BetOnline.com ![]()
Featured – We are rating this room an ( A ) for trust factor for player funds and also has highest deposit and withdraw speeds and success rates with full poker, casino and sports. Visit BetOnline now.
Bovadapoker.lv – (previously named Bodog) Best poker site at the moment with good games and $100k guarantees and $1,100 bonus. Not mac compatible.
Carbonpoker.com – Probably the most trusted site on the Merge Network that allows US players. People in New York, Kentucky, Washington DC, Maryland, Washington, Missouri and Louisiana are not accepted though.
CasinoTitan.com ![]()
– Most prominent US facing site to say they will not leave the US market despite recent withdraws from other casinos. Fast cashouts and deposits.
Aladdinsgold.com – Good withdraw speeds for US players including catering to higher limit players with very high reputation in casino industry.
Diceland.com – Pretty much any US citizen wanting to deposit and play will have no problems. This casino group leads the industry in easy deposits and withdrawing from the United States, rare these days.
- Here is the list of more US accepted online casinos CompatiblePoker recommends.
Updated: Dec. 10, ‘11 – Compatiblepoker is not affiliated with these companies. Check local laws before gambling online or using any poker deposit option.
Updated Jan 27, 2012 – If you don’t see the site on this list they do not accept US players or are not a popular enough poker site to list.
These are US states that have stronger issues with gambling.
(These are common consensus from experts across the web. Always consult a lawyer before making your own decision.)
No, except for a few states. The UIGEA addressed deposit methods and financial institutions (banks) that allow gambling transactions, not the players. A US DOJ official said in a Congressional hearing it was not illegal for US players to play online. The new law makes it illegal for US banks to allow gambling related transactions so the actual legality of online poker has not changed for the player. While it is clear that online sports betting is definitely a federal crime nobody has been arrested for playing online poker. See state bans above for more details and possible felonies.
The following question was answered by the authoritative online gambling legal expert, I. Nelson Rose here. To summarize, he says you are not going to jail for playing at online poker sites, it is safe to cash/deposit checks from US poker sites as long as you’re reporting income. He advises not to keep too much money in ewallets in case of tie-ups.
Party Poker closed to the US in 2006 to protect their investors. Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker’s domains were seized (.com versions) in 2011 because the US government used an organization that oversees .com domains where if the government believes they are committing a felony, they can go through ICANN to take away the site. It’s basically guilty until proven innocent instead innocent until proven guilty.
2012 Update: Poker has been legalized in the USA. There are no US based operations but they are expected towards the end of 2012. You can still play legally online at Betonline.com for now but depositing can be a bit hard, but not illegal.
People are still playing online poker just fine. Now that the UIGEA has passed, we are seeing poker sites like the WSOP opening poker rooms online for UK players only. People like Harrah’s Entertainment will now lobby “for” poker and online casinos, whereas before they were “against” it. They went from paying lobbyists to help the UIGEA to paying to have legalized internet poker in the US. The final regulations have since been released (view final regulations its a .pdf). Banks now have to fully comply with the final regulations. Here is the latest article written on how these regulations will impact US poker players. It is titled, “Final UIGEA Regulations; Nothing Changes“. Also here is an older article talking about when the regulations were first proposed. (Gambling Law Professor’s view of the proposed regulations)
The reason some operators have excluded certain sites and not the whole US population is because they are interpreting the law differently. Because the law addresses “Unlawful Gambling”, the internet poker sites like Bodogpoker.com (now Bovada) feel they are not breaking any laws and therefore operate in some states, and not in others.
| 5-7 Day Peak Player Traffic Averages | Pokerstars | Fulltiltpoker | PartyPoker | EverestPoker |
| Prior to UIGEA being signed (Oct. 8, 2006 – Oct. 12, 2006) | 9,713 | 4,623 | 10,746 | 2,557 |
| Prior to Neteller closing (Jan. 13, – 17 – 2007) | 14,781 | 7,480 | 8,595 | 3,857 |
| After Neteller closed to US ( Jan. 19 – 23 – 2007) | 12,636 | 5,797 | 8,320 | 3,990 |
| March 1st – 5th, 2007 Average | 13,300 | 6,239 | 10,894 | 4,865 |
| April 1st – 5th, 2007 Average | 12,154 | 6,720 | 10,963 | 4,874 |
| June 1st – 5th, 2007 Average | 13,458 | 7,969 | 8,971 | 4,313 |
| 2007 WSOP Broadcast affects (July 16-20 Average) | 13,209 | 8,981 | 8,232 | 3,972 |
| August 15-19, 2007 Average | 13,279 | 8,292 | 7,433 | 3,913 |
| WSOP Main Event broad affects (Sept 1-5, 2007 Average) | 14,087 | 6,266 | 9,392 | 3,560 |
| 1 year UIGEA anniversary (Oct 1-5 of 2007) | 14264 | 7682 | 8391 | 4960 |
| November 1st-5th, 2007 Average | 16310 | 8109 | 7865 | 4562 |
| February 1st – 7th, 2008 Average | 22161 | 11857 | 9092 | 6435 |
| March 1st – 7th, 2008 Average | 22406 | 11129 | 9159 | 5722 |
| April 12th-18th, 7 day average after Epassporte pullout | 22483 | 9975 | na | na |
| January 23-30th, 2009 7 day Average | 35257 | 15593 | 9173 | 5326 |
| September 7 – 13th, 2009 7 day Average | 38970 | 25060 | 9071 | 4399 |
| One week prior to June 1, 2010 UIGEA implementation | 44,000 | 20,480 | 7,433 | n/a |
| One Week Avg After June 1, 2010 UIGEA implementation | 43,602 | 21,541 | 7,028 | N/A |
| One week prior “Black Friday” April 08-15, 2011 | 45,249 | 22,516 | 6,587 | n/a |
| One week AFTER “Black Friday” April 15-22, 2011 (no USA accepted) |
31,044 | 15,982 (now 0) | 7,103 | N/A |
| Numbers analyzed during major event periods
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January 27, 2011
The PPA came out with a survey that was kind of interesting, but not the best way to conduct a survey if you ask me. Let me get to their survey. The PPA surveyed its members and 90% of the people support Federal licensing of online poker. Like many of the readers here, the answers are skewed because most of the people who joined the PPA were most likely screwed by one of the sites in the past few years whether it be Full Tilt money being held, ewallets frozen, or Absolute poker fraud. In any case just remember, the main reason so many people got the shaft was because the government stepped in and seized so much money over the years, putting massive burden on these poker companies. If it weren’t for the US Department of Justice and their shock and awe type of runs on the poker players funds, its very likely most of the online poker rooms wouldn’t have ended up in the situation they are now in. Basically the government fucked poker players, and now we need protection from, well, the government. So while the majority want Federal licensing just remember who caused this mass downfall of online poker in the US.
With that said, I’ve recently noticed from a business standpoint more and more people looking for poker related stuff. I believe all the news about poker now being ‘legal’ in the major outlets is pushing this. There has definitely been an uptick in the post-December poker Wire Act’s stance on internet poker.
It also seems that Chris Ferguson, poker player and part owner of Full Tilt Poker, siphoned about $45 million out of Full Tilt starting in 2007. Where that money is, nobody knows. This could potentially lead to a non-deal with the potential new owner of Full Tilt, Bernard Tapie according to Subject-Poker. How any of these previous FTP owners didn’t know US poker would eventually come to an end is beyond me. I can recall speaking with a large gaming friend and even we knew it would eventually come crashing down. Greed causes blindness I guess.
January 16, 2011
The lobbyists are out and pushing for federal legislation of internet poker early this week. Both MGM and Caesars are also backing federal legislation. While I hate anything to do with the government for online poker to work on a large scale it does need to be on a federal level in order to more effectively have a real poker room for all US players and not just people playing each other online in their own states. The states obviously want all the tax money to themselves…
January 14, 2011
Ok so here is something new that I don’t think even the large companies have been taking into account. I continue to read how the US gambling market is valued at $6 billion dollars. It ranges, but that’s about the number they keep coming up with. This number seems to be derived from the loss in stock value back in 2006 during the UIGEA. OK, for starters people in the US still gambled online after the UIGEA so the number is instantly off. The $6 billion that left public companies simply went to private companies where US players were already active. That’s not the main point I’d like to make. The US online gambling market is MUCH LARGER THAN $6B, Reuters believes it will jump to $10B but that is still low. Here is why, and if you’re a poker player or someone looking to get into making money playing poker this analysis is important to you, it’s not just businesses that will make money with an increased market value but good poker players especially.
Those actually in the gambling market who currently accept bets or affiliates to US gaming sites know the biggest obstacle is finding a way for people to fund and withdraw from their accounts (thanks UIGEA). Aside from the fact most people are scared to deposit because of what happened in April with Full Tilt and Absolute Poker (thanks Black Friday), it is very difficult to deposit online. Let me give you some stats that I have.
From the United States, poker players deposit on average 15% of the time. That means if they go to a poker room and signup, there is a 15% chance they will play for real money. What all the ‘experts’ aren’t accounting for is that this 15% would be extremely higher in a regulated market. Only 15% are depositing because restrictions of the UIGEA that still block foreign gambling deposits. We’re not going to assume anything here. In the United Kingdom sports bettors deposit at a rate of up to 90%, and even higher. Of course most people who signup at a bookmaker are going to bet, otherwise what’s the point of signing up? Let’s transfer that to the United States. In the USA, sports bettors only deposit at a rate of 20%. That’s a 70% difference, and it’s simply because of the ease of depositing (legally) in the UK vs the illegality of depositing in the US and how hard it is to deposit from the US these days. Now that we have a base for numbers lets look at the ‘true’ value of the US online gambling market.
If the numbers prove correct, one would expect approximately 70% of the money made by US gamblers is being left out due to deposit restrictions. While I don’t believe 90% will actually deposit to play poker, I do believe it would be nearly 75% depositing to gamble. This means that predictions are 5X lower than expected. The true value of US online gambling would in fact be ($6b X 5), or $30 billion dollars, not $6 billion.
Now those who were around back in 2003-2006 know how much different poker was. It was almost impossible to find an online poker table to sit at for sites like Party Poker because sooo many people were playing at once. But now, it’s hard to find a poker table to play at or a sit n go because most of the virtual tables are empty. If poker is legalized in the US via an interstate method (people can play against other states and countries) then once word gets out my figures blow pre-2006’s numbers out of the water. That is of course if the US citizens are still into poker as much as they were before. While I don’t believe they are, personally I believe legalized poker will revive it, but ONLY on interstate/multi-national levels. It will be a VERY lucrative time for poker players who are even half decent at poker. The % rates in this update were taken from the US accepted poker site and sportsbook, Betonline.com which has the highest deposit rates for both verticals.
January 13, 2011
- I was reading G911 and saw a Reuters video about Jack Abramhoff speaking about the recent change in US law about online poker/lotteries. A bit shocked to see him giving an interview on gambling considering what a total piece of scum he is after he defrauded so many people in the US gaming industry, mostly tribes, but he also was pretty much behind the mafia hit on the now dead Suncruz casino founder, Gus Boulis. Anyways he pretty much says straight up everything about gambling in the US is about politics and corruption. While not really ‘news’, it’s interesting to watch him speak so candidly about how much corrupt money is exchanging hands to get online poker legalized. Here is the youtube video. I’ve mentioned it before but if you’re ever interested in a documentary about US gambling, “Jack Abramhoff, and The United States of Money” is really good.
January 3, 2011
Well I’ve been reading some of the legal minds, organizations and gaming site owners interpretation of the future of online poker now that the Wire Act does not cover it. Let’s just say the opinions vary greatly, as usual with any sort of speculating about the psychology of the US government and the players at play. Most agree we will have intra-state (within ones state borders), but not until after 2012.
I can’t help but wonder why Harrah’s and Caesars would not have internet casinos and poker in 2012. They’ve already have the framework with an online casino and poker room already operational (WSOP.com) for the past year. As licenses go out I would think they could very easily be prepared asap making them among the leaders. I believe the WSOP will become the biggest poker giant. Many believe whomever acquires sites like Party Poker (MGM), or Poker Stars would be the leader but remember it is difficult to say. Party Poker has an enormous database of US players emails, a large following of ‘play money’ players from the United States and a vast amount of ex-US players that have loyalty to the site, same with Poker Stars.
On the other hand when people think of poker in the USA they generally think of the WSOP. Party Poker was quoted many years ago as saying advertising in the United States among the WSOP catapulted their site to epic proportions. Now the WSOP will have exclusivity to that. So from my standpoint, I see the WSOP.com (Harrah’s), PartyPoker/BWIN (MGM) and Pokerstars (Wynn) becoming the next BIG 3. I don’t believe current market share will play a huge importance on who becomes big, it’s who has prepared best and has all the marketing in place when the flood gates open. Of course, we can’t rule out Google, Yahoo, or Facebook either. Speculating on this particular future will make your mind go in many different directions.
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