US Poker Rooms
With more than 10 million online poker players USA is by far the country that supplies the poker rooms with most players. Unfortunately only a few poker rooms accept US players as of today. The famous brands Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker are known by most Americans. However a few other rooms also accept US poker players and those rooms are worthwhile signing up with too. These rooms are now popular as American Poker Rooms.
Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet share poker software on the Cereus poker software platform. The poker tournament offerings on AP or UB are outstanding in terms of guarantees and overlays. All serious US poker player simply need to check the tournament schedule on these rooms. Cake Poker is growing fast and has developed really nice software and some cool promotions.
Bodog Poker also accepts USA online poker players and the innovative sign up bonus where players receive an instant 10% to play with is a great incentive to create a Bodog Poker account. No one can beat Poker Stars in number of players but Cake Poker, Absolute Poker, Ultimate Bet and Bodog have other qualities. It is easier to win the Sunday poker tournament any of these rooms and still run away with a substantial 1st price.
We suggest US poker players to open accounts with all these rooms and frequently log in to the account and also read the marketing emails the rooms send out. Smaller rooms often offer bigger gems to loyal players.
Top US Poker Rooms
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Absolute Poker is the third biggest US poker room accepting players from the USA. The main competitors PokerStars and Full Tilt poker are by far bigger in terms of liquidity but Absolute Poker has plenty of action and should be one of the US poker rooms downloaded. With a great sign up poker bonus, plenty of reload bonuses monthly and a genuine solid VIP system then Absolute poker offer a solid environment when it comes to retention and player base. With many big tournament guarantees weekly the US facing poker room is a place to play cheap qualifiers or participate in some of the many FAME loyalty point tournaments that give access to the $100,000 or $200,000 weekly tournaments.
A new term has come to surface to identify poker rooms that welcome US players. As of October 2006 when the US Senate passed a new legislation regarding money transfers to online gambling operators, the majority of poker sites have decided to block access to poker players originating from the USA. Some poker sites that belong to large gaming companies which are listed on the London Stock Exchange want to save the hassle of explaining themselves and therefore avoid the possible legal problems involved in continuing accepting American poker players, even though in practice the legal status of the new legislation is not established yet as it is in reality in the grey zone.
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) was signed by George W. Bush as an attempt to block US citizens from participating on online gambling sites as the US government realized that enormous figures of money were being deposited at poker rooms and the US government did not have access to taxing them as most of the online gaming sites are licensed outside of the US. Due to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, poker players from the United States have to choose U.S. poker sites as there participation on other poker sites is blocked.
*Note that it is not illegal for US poker players to play online, except in some local legislations. If you choose a U.S. poker site, you can carry on playing the game you love. Here, we list the best rooms for U.S. players.
The large poker sites decided not to step out of the US market and continue to welcome US players in their online poker rooms as it is still not clear for players if they are really not allowed to participate. In reality it was an opportunity cost as to lose the opportunity to go public or continue to accept players from the US maintain traffic high and target the very top. Top poker rooms such as Poker Stars, Cake Poker and Full Tilt Poker continue to allow US players. We now call those poker sites ‘US poker rooms’.