Legality of Online Poker in the United States

 PLAY ONLINE POKER AT CAKEPOKER.COM - OPEN TO USA PLAYERS

The legal landscape of online poker has been shaky for all parties involved since the late 90s. For over a decade lawmakers have been trying, with limited success, to ban Americans from playing poker on the internet.

The most notable attempts to ban internet gambling have come from Bills HR 4411 and HR4777, championed by Senator Jon Kyl and Representatives Jim Leach (R – IA) and Bob Goodlatte (R – VA).

HR 4411 was designed to prevent credit cards and banks from processing gambling related payments. HR 4777 was designed to accomplish similar goals by expanding the definitions of Title 18, a code that describes crimes and criminal procedure.

In the late 90’s these bills were introduced to congress for the first time. They made it through the house and senate, but ultimately got bogged down in Congress. For years these bills were reworded and re-introduced with no success.

In the early 2000’s, Senator Bill Frist came out from some dark crevice deep within the bowels of the earth with dreams of a Presidency. In his pandering to the extreme right conservatives, Bill Frist came up with a list of 10 family values that he would attempt to restore in America. Somehow online gambling got thrown into the mix and he became an anti-gambling zealot. Because he lumped poker in with gambling (a debatable topic in itself), poker players had a reason to worry.

The UIGEA Bill

Frist’s initial efforts at banning online gambling failed miserably. But old Bill was a clever one… On September 29th, 2006, he found a way to get his legislation passed. A port security bill that was very likely to be passed was scheduled for vote on September 30th. This was the SAFE Port Act, a bill that would increase the nation’s security at maritime ports. Knowing that nobody would dare vote against such a bill, Senator Frist attached his anti-gambling legislation to the SAFE Port Act in the late hours of September 29th.

This bill did not make it illegal for citizens to play online poker, but it did make it illegal for banks to process payments to or from known gambling venues. For years banks had been burdened with various regulations regarding online poker but this new bill was much more expansive. Neteller, a widely popular third party payment processor, was shut down by the US DOJ. All of Neteller’s and its customers’ funds were frozen for months without explanation.

There was a major shake up as the industry struggled to fill the void left by the sudden departure of Neteller. Poker sites scrambled to find a new payment processor and all sorts of outfits jousted to become the next Neteller. Eventually a small company named ePassporte rose above the rest and became the leading payment processor. In the beginning, ePassporte was plagued with customer service problems and delays. As the company wrenched itself through the sudden growth, it became much more stable and now processes huge volumes of transactions without problems.

The convoluted laws and rampant rumors have played a part in making poker a legal grey area. There are federal regulations like the UIGEA and the Wire Act that can be applied to online poker in varying degrees, but there is no federal law on the books that makes it illegal for an individual to play online poker for real money.

There are several states laws, however, that specifically make it a crime to gamble online. These laws have not been enforced and have so far proven to be toothless. As of today, there has yet to be a single case of an individual being charged or prosecuted for gambling online.

Since the initial reaction of 2006, the online poker industry has somewhat settled back into a comfortable status. Several major poker sites refunded their US customers and shut down operations in the US. Because some of the larger poker sites were listed on public exchanges, they decided to end all US operations. These included Party Poker, Paradise Poker, the Cryptologic network and the Prima Poker network.

Poker Rooms Allowing US Players

There are still plenty of options for US players though. Because of their status as private companies, PokerStars, Ultimate Bet, Full Tilt, BodogPoker, Cake Poker, Carbon Poker and Absolute Poker all decided to continue accepting US Customers. PokerStars has really grown thanks to its reputation for the best tournaments, populated cash games, superior customer service, and security.

Full Tilt and Ultimate Bet offer a wide array of tournaments as well, but they are more well known for their cash games and lightning quick software. Bodog, Cake and Carbon are some of the smaller poker rooms but they have shown themselves to be secure sites and are sometimes rumored to have the fishiest cash games of them all.