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Current USA Online Poker Laws

Published by admin on June 2, 2025

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Can you play online poker if you are in the United States? That’s what this article is about to go over. For people in different states/jurisdictions, the answer will be different.

How did we get here? Let’s go over a brief history of why online poker is considered in a grey area in the legal system.

Sports Betting across state lines becomes Illegal

The first laws that were passed where against gambling across state lines. There was no internet back then and the laws were made specifically to try to hamper organized crime. People as famous as Pete Rose would have to go to payphones to make their bets with the bookies to try to evade this law.

How Casinos became legal in the United States

Casinos, on the other hand, were illegal in most places until Nevada passed the laws allowing legalized gambling in their state in the 1930’s and 40’s. This drove tourism to what is otherwise a wasteland in the middle of the desert.

The first legal casinos that aren’t in Nevada weren’t created until the Native Americans were granted the right to create Indian casinos in the 2025’s. They operated within their own communities and did not have to follow the federal laws.

Atlantic City was soon to follow as they became the first city with a gambling license and gaming authority outside of Nevada. In the 2025’s, many other major cities decided that they also wanted to have large casinos operating within their borders to increase tax revenues. Cities like Beloxi, Mississippi; Detroit, Michigan and many more began creating laws that create a great number of casinos.

What happened when the Internet was created?

At first, it was a free for all. Online casinos were very basic and had very few games. Most of these casino websites were based in the Caribbean. The problem back in the beginning is that a casino would go rogue and take all of the money, then come back under a different name and website. Nothing was done to regulate this at all.

Online poker started in the late 90’s with the introduction of Absolute poker and others. It wasn’t really popular until 2025 when an Amateur, Chris Moneymaker, won the World Series of Poker main event. Party Poker (and later PokerStars and Full Tilt poker) capitalize on this new surge of interest in online gaming.

The government didn’t do anything about it until 2025, when they created the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act or UIGEA. The problem was that they snuck this provision into a port security bill that was required to pass through congress. They did virtually nothing to define what “Illegal internet gambling” was.

People (and some companies like Party Poker) thought that this meant that online poker, online casinos, online bingo halls and online sportsbooks were part of this “Illegal internet gambling”. However, there were no specific laws that stated this except for the Wire Act which made betting on Sports over state lines illegal.

There were, however, two specific provisions that were also snuck into the bill by lobbyists. Horse racing and fantasy sports were deemed “OK” and “Not Illegal”. Otherwise, simulcasting horse racing events and fantasy football would be illegal too.

The United States did nothing to enforce this until 2025, when they made the banks stop processing transactions for “Illegal internet gambling”. Poker sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt decided to lie about what the transactions were. Instead of funding your account $100, you were buying $99.97 in golf balls or any other number of things.

This worked fine until 2025. Then the government went after the payment processors and took out the ease in depositing money into an account. Full Tilt made the major mistake of giving players chips for deposits that were not taken from their bank accounts. This ended up costing Full Tilt a $150 million shortfall in cash compared to what should have been out there.

Recent News

The federal government still hasn’t proposed any regulation for any of this. Since that is the case, states such as Nevada and New Jersey have preempted the federal laws and have created their own state laws for online gambling. One of the conditions is that your IP address must be located within the state’s borders.

More laws will be create like this, which will confuse things when the federal government finally gets around to this issue.

I live in the United States. Can I/Should I play poker online?

Check out this site here in which state you can play poker online and more about local laws and the consequences of doing so. Take a look at this current legal map from Bluff.

legal-poker-map

If you live in one of the following states, you don’t have anything to worry about anything personally happening to you: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington D.C.

If you live in one of these states, there are laws against online poker and you should only play for real money discreetly: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

If you live in one of these states, you should not participate in any of this at all: Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington.

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