USA Poker - The Guide to Poker in the US

The most troubling year for the United States in terms of online gambling was definitely 2006. In 2006, the United States passed the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act). The UIGEA created a headache for online poker sites and it completely confused a large portion of the U.S. population. The confusion came primarily from the large percentage of people that were misinformed and believed the rumors floating around. The biggest misunderstanding was the people believed somehow it was now illegal for U.S. players to gamble online. This belief is not true, nor does the legislation imply anything even remotely similar.

The reasoning for the government's decision is still unclear but it was said to be a result of a concern that citizens were negligently and foolishly spending their money online gambling. However, many believe the issue was definitely money related but was because the U.S. government wasn't getting their cut, as most online poker sites operate outside the country. Either way, the intention of the legislation to deter online gamblers or make it inaccessible was entirely unsuccessful in a broad sense.

U.S. Online Poker

The legislation in 2006 placed a law into effect that required any financial institution to reject or decline the processing of any transaction that appears to be related or affiliated with online gambling. The idea was to avoid causing massive public outcry and just force banks to make it inaccessible for players to deposit money and magically, no one would play online poker anymore. However, many online poker sites decided to switch to third-party payment processors with no affiliation to online gambling that were proven to be extremely successful at processing U.S. issued credit/debit cards and U.S. bank transfers.

Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker are the largest online poker sites that accept U.S. players currently. Ironically, they were the primary beneficiaries of migrating U.S. Party Poker players in 2006 when Party Poker stopped allowing U.S. players. Prior to 2006, Party Poker was the largest online poker site in the world and a large majority of the U.S. online poker players played there.

Nowadays, U.S. players seem to be extremely successful using Visa or MasterCard credit/debit cards to make online poker deposits at most online poker sites. The success of these deposits largely depends on the online poker site's processors and the issuing bank of the credit/debit card. However, U.S. players that are being rejected have multiple online poker sites to choose from as well as multiple deposit options. E-wallets and Echecks are just two methods where U.S. players can still use their U.S. bank account to fund their online poker account in the event their Visa/MasterCard debit/credit card is being continually declined.

US Poker Sites

Bodog Poker

Doyles Room

Absolute Poker

Pokerstars

Ultimate Bet

Full Tilt Poker