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 very few poker rooms accept US players after UIGEA and Black Friday. With the exclusion of famous brands Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker only a few other rooms accept US poker players, but these rooms are worthwhile signing up on, until US legislation changes.

The best US Poker room available is Cake Poker, which is growing fast and has developed a really nice software and some cool promotions. Bodog Poker also accepts USA online poker players and gives a innovative sign up bonus, where players receive an instant 10% to play with and a great incentive to create a Bodog Poker account.

We suggest US poker players to open accounts with both 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, and for the time being they are the only choice for American citizens.

US Poker Rooms

US Poker after UIGEA and Black Friday

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. Therefore 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 their participation on other poker sites is blocked.

The large poker sites first recently decided to step out of the US market and block US players in their online poker rooms after FBI overtook their home pages. This became known as Black Friday and a consequence was that top poker rooms such as Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker(real scum), UB Poker and Absolute Poker stepped out of the US Poker marked.

*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 available rooms for U.S. players.