Want to play some poker to get your mind off these difficult times and experience the thrill of going all-in and winning a huge pot? Online poker in the USA is booming. Thousands, maybe millions of players like you are already at the best online poker sites playing Texas Hold'em or Omaha for real money from the comfort of their homes.
Most of them are at ⛽ Ignition Poker ⛽, which is the best online poker site for US players. Thus, if you're itching for some poker just click that link, register for a free account, and you'll be seated at the poker table within minutes.
If you need more information, keep reading because Professional Rakeback will break down the best online poker rooms for US players and will subsequently explain why each of them deserves to be on our coveted top 10 recommended poker sites list. Evaluating all the operators in the USA offshore poker landscape is a daunting task, but we are poker experts and professional online players, so we did all the hard work for you. Every site we recommend is a site our staff plays on, risking their own hard-earned money, no BS.
You have just one thing to do – pick the best online poker room to fit your specific needs...
If we evaluate an operator and conclude that they are particularly shady or high-risk, we do not include it in the aforementioned list. Instead, we include those operators that fall into the caution section of this page or our page dedicated to black-listed gambling sites.
If you would like to find out more about any one of these reputable cardrooms, then we have prepared mini-reviews of all of them below. At the bottom of each mini-review on this page, we have included a link to the full review pages, which range from 5 thousand to 11 thousand words in length, for those detail-oriented readers who want to get all the facts straight before depositing their hard-earned money.
This is a long, comprehensive article, and we encourage you to use the Table of Contents on the right to quickly and easily find the information that most interests you! Once you visit a section, hitting the back button in your browser will take you directly back to this ToC. We also encourage you to leave comments and questions at the bottom of this page: We answer every single one!
There are a number of reputable as well as disreputable US Poker sites available to you no matter what state you reside in.
We realize that most people do not eat, sleep, and breathe online poker like we do. We also realize that it may be difficult for you, Dear Reader, to figure out which is which and who is who.
We have done the hard work and research for you. We encourage you to make use of this painstaking research to find a fun and legal online poker game to play within minutes.
We know that you value your time and your money, and you therefore wish to deposit your entertainment budget at only the safest online poker sites for US players. No matter which of our partners in the following section you opt to play at, you can rest assured they are in fact safe poker sites. Your funds will be held securely and will be sent back to you, along with your winnings, promptly upon your request.
Want proof?
We maintain what we believe to be the most thoroughly detailed payout report in the online gambling industry. Each month we comb the Internet in order to seek out, collect, and collate hundreds of publicly verifiable mentions, made by real users, of payouts at numerous gaming websites. Then, we crunch the numbers and publish the data so that you know which casino, sportsbook, and poker companies offer the fastest payouts.
We promise that we will not recommend any poker site to you that we do not personally risk our own money on. We are not like many of our “professional affiliate” competitors who use “churn and burn” tactics. We “put our money where our mouth is” and “practice what we preach” here at Professional Rakeback. You can bet on it!
Our staff consists of a number of professional, enthusiast, as well as recreational players. Most of us are real money players, but one staffer, who will remain unnamed, still donks off on the play money tables.
All of us have played extensively on all available US-facing rooms, some of us for over a decade. Internally, and on public forums, we endlessly discuss and debate the available options while we're playing and writing the latest poker news.
We have an expert-level grasp on the current situation in the US market. Below you will find our current favorite US poker websites.
Ignition Casino is the hottest site available to Americans. In Q3 2017, Ignition also became available to Australians. This is significant because it is the country with the highest gambling rate in the world, and subsequently, a lot of new fish are joining up at Ignition. So don't let the name fool you, Ignition's poker room has nearly twice the traffic of the nearest competitor and easy competition to boot.
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Sportsbetting.ag's poker room, SB Poker, is a leading US-friendly option on the Chico Gaming Network. Chico is a recreational poker network who prioritize their sportsbook and casino operations over poker. While at first that statement might be off-putting, it is actually great news. You see, the tables have a higher-than-normal proportion of gamblers from the sportsbook and casino.
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Bovada is an old name that some of the long-time gamblers among our audience may recognize. It served the United States poker market starting in 2011, but then it closed down its poker room in September 2016. Not to worry though – Bovada is back in all its glory since August 2017, and it has more or less the same gaming platform that users loved before, but it now also has many improvements.
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BetOnline is part of the same Chico Poker Network that SB Poker (described above) calls home. Therefore, all the cash games, tournaments, and sit & gos are identical between the two sites. Thus, you will enjoy the same loose and donkish games at BoL as you would on its partner room.
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Coin Poker is the largest pure crypto-currency online poker site in the world. CP is also the fastest growing rakeback site with steadily-improving traffic, increasing tournament guarantees, and a smooth poker client interface.
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Everygame is the best ProfRB.com recommended safe and secure online poker site on the US-facing Horizon Network. It doesn't transact nationwide and is thus only available to players in 43 US states. This room provides multi-table tournaments and sit-n-go's that are structured to be fast, fun, and priced just right for recreational players, which is to say there are no restrictive, high-dollar buy-in events on this network.
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America's Cardroom is the leading brand on the US-friendly Winning Poker Network, which is a fine destination for US and international players alike. ACR is in fact owned by the WPN itself, so you can be sure that your money is safe and backed by the parent organization. In 2017, this network started allowing nearly 70 crypto-currencies for deposits and withdrawals – read our interview with their CEO.
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The little brother of Everygame, Juicy Stakes was actually a separate company before it was bought over and folded into the Everygame family of real money gaming products. Therefore, most things about Juicy are the same as at its older, more established partner on the Horizon Poker Network. One thing that's missing at JS, though, is a sportsbook, so you're better off going with 'Tops instead if betting on sports is important to you.
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BlackChip Poker is a part of the Winning Poker Network. It is an alternate skin that you might want to try out instead of Americas Cardroom. BCP is owned by the same company and has the same robust cashier interface and busy poker lobbies as the rest of the network. You're therefore not missing out on much if you select BlackChip as your WPN site of choice.
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SWCPoker, formerly Seals With Clubs, is the leading #1 Bitcoin-only site. Independently operated, this site's players can deposit and withdraw using the ever-popular crypto-currency known as Bitcoin as well as offshoot Bitcoin Cash. It is worth noting that all games are denominated in these two cryptos, and at no point in time are deposited bitcoins converted into fiat (like most sites do). It is Bitcoin in and Bitcoin out at SWC. This leads to lightning-quick payout time frames and ease of transfer when making withdrawals. SWC is truly one of the last "Wild West" types of poker rooms available, offering cash games, multi-table tournaments, and sit-n-goes with steady traffic.
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97.8% of the US population is not restricted by law from playing on US poker sites in any way! Most Americans, 81.4% to be exact, can play without any restriction imposed by their state, federal government, or the US-friendly poker rooms themselves. Of the 18.6% of the population who are restricted in some way, only 2.2% of those are restricted by state laws, 0% by federal laws, and the remaining 16.4% are only restricted in the sense that not all of the offshore poker sites allow them to play in their games.
As there is no federal law against playing online, simply placing wagers online is legal. - Katherine Butler[1]
States that do not have full access to all available offshore hosted real money online poker sites include: Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, and Washington. There are at least three online rooms available in all of the aforementioned states. Less excluded states, such as Louisiana for example, have half a dozen options to choose from.
Our map below lists states with limited options in yellow, the other 41 states and all of the US territories are wide open. If your state is in yellow, it is not necessarily because there are laws prohibiting residents from playing online poker for real money. It simply means that some US-friendly sites and poker networks do not provide services to your state for any of a variety of business reasons.
Click the map to open a new window where you can visually see what poker websites are allowed and disallowed in your location. Then continue reading for more information and reviews. If your state is indicated as green in the graphic below, all of the following legitimate and legal real money Internet poker rooms are available to you:
If you are interested in learning more about the specific online gambling situation for any US state, we have spent thousands of man hours researching the legal status of poker, sports betting, and casino play via the internet in all 50 states. In these reviews, we go over all of the applicable state gambling laws in an attempt to ascertain not only the letter of the law, but the true intent of the laws in each state. We make cases for and against gambling online in each state and why you should feel safe or avoid playing online in your particular state.
Within the past decade, a new type of USA online poker site has appeared: those that are legally licensed to transact by the authorities in one or more states. Thus far, such regulated internet poker venues have appeared in New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. In addition, West Virginia and Connecticut are expected to host their own licensed interactive poker sites in a year or two.
These state-approved internet poker halls are only playable if you're located inside the borders of the state where they're licensed. This includes both long-term residents as well as travelers. Operators have become pretty adept at using geo-location technology to bar individuals trying to access the gaming from elsewhere though there is the occasional slip-up or two.
There are certain benefits to being properly licensed by the legal authorities, such as much smoother transaction processing and the ability to advertise openly, but there are also drawbacks. Perhaps the largest disadvantage is that each state's licenses are valid only within that specific state, meaning that the pool of players who can participate at any one platform is limited. For this reason, all the US licensed internet poker rooms are pretty modest affairs with fairly limited game liquidity.
New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware are aware of this fact, and the three states have actually signed a traffic sharing arrangement[2], called the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement, so that they can pool their customers together to create bigger games and tournaments. Yet the impact of this maneuver has been less than initially thought because there is only a single poker network, the one spearheaded by 888poker, that does business in more than one of these three states.
In April 2022, Michigan was approved to join this compact. Although its player pool has not yet been merged with the other three states, this step is expected to occur shortly and boost player volume numbers across several rooms.
Even this limited combination of poker traffic stood on shaky ground because a January 2019 Department of Justice opinion declared interstate gaming agreements like this one to be against the Federal Wire Act. However, this line of reasoning was contested by many parties, and New Hampshire has actually won a verdict in federal court against the DoJ. The Feds opted not to go down quietly without a fight and appealed the decision, but their hopes were dashed by a First Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ruled in favor of New Hampshire.
Though some foresaw an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, the Department of Justice elected to finally accept defeat in this case before it reached that stage. In 2022, the DoJ lost a similar case against gaming software house IGT.
The hope now is that these court verdicts will entice some of the newer online poker states to join in the traffic sharing compact: Pennsylvania, which legalized poker over the internet in October 2017, West Virginia, which passed an online gambling bill in March 2019, and Connecticut, which legalized online poker in May 2021. Of these three states, Pennsylvania has active sites for internet poker, including BetMGM/Borgata, WSOP.com, and PokerStars PA. West Virginia meanwhile is still awaiting the approval and licensure of its first instate internet poker operators. The situation in Connecticut is similar to that in West Virginia.
Despite these issues, state-regulated online poker is a reality, the sites are safe, and the card games being dealt out at these rooms are real. They do represent a viable alternative to offshore poker sites albeit one that's accessible to only about 8% of the nation's population (slightly higher if we consider that people can travel to the appropriate states if they wish to play).
We've closely examined some of the most notable of these state-supervised internet poker rooms because we want to give you the full scoop on as many available USA online cardrooms as possible. Though it's probable that you'll opt for an offshore brand instead, you can read our reviews of the largest licensed sites and make your own decision:
All of these licensed interactive poker sites are regulated by the various jurisdictions in which they operate. The organizations that have oversight over the industry are generally preexisting bodies that already had responsibility for overseeing gambling in their respective states. For the licensed online poker states, the agencies involved are as follows:
We have laid out for you the sites that we feel are the best. We have told you which sites are the worst, some outright scams, and to save yourself the trouble of playing at them. But are there any sites in between? As a matter of fact, there are.
The sites below all have positive features, mainly payout speeds, so they are legit poker sites in that sense. Also, they provide games to US players, but there are issues with them, which hold us back from recommending them to our loyal readers and clients. We will go over those issues below and let you decide if you want to proceed. We will not recommend that you play, or not play, at any of the following sites.
Global Poker - This site provides games in most states. Its main appeal initially was that it offered payouts via PayPal, which is a great thing for players and hasn't been seen since before Black Friday on any legitimate site. However, Global Poker lost that juicy advantage when PayPal ceased doing business with them in the middle of 2018. What gives us further pause is the fact that the site uses a "sweepstakes model" as its legal justification. There are many industries and gambling venues that have attempted to use the sweepstakes loophole and almost all of them have lost in court.[10] In fact, sweepstakes gambling has been tried, and failed, in numerous states such as Texas[11], North Carolina[12], and many others since the 1970s.
Such legal precedents do not inspire confidence in us that this business venture will last long-term. We were surprised PayPal was cooperative as long as they were and that the US Feds and Department of Justice haven't stepped in to enforce some sort of UIGEA violation. This is in fact a real money gambling site disguised as a sweepstakes game, and it is exceedingly unlikely to stand up to government prosecution in a court of law.
We also dislike this site because it offers no rakeback or player rewards, no waiting lists, no late registration, few freerolls, and no bad beat jackpot. The buy-in amounts are almost always trivial, which encourages lots of flips and little poker play. Oh yeah, and the rake is in some cases 40% higher than its competitors, a.k.a. the offshore sites above that we actually recommend. Read our full Global Poker review for more information.
PPPoker - This is a mobile poker platform that started out in Asia in 2015, but it has since expanded and now has players in dozens of countries across the globe. This internet poker destination is famed for the softness of its games because it's marketed toward recreational live donks who wish to take their fishy play online. Unfortunately, this site uses an agent model, which makes it much riskier than traditional online poker rooms.
In order to access the tables, you must join a private club that's managed by an agent. All gameplay is conducted onsite for play chips, and the agent handles deposits and cashouts directly with the players, translating fake money into real currency at whatever rate he has agreed to with his customers. This play money-only policy allows PPPoker to disclaim all liability if your account balance goes missing. The safety of your funds is directly tied to the honesty of your agent. If you encounter one who's trustworthy, then you might very well have an enjoyable and profitable experience at PPPoker. If not, well, then it's the agent who will have an enjoyable and profitable experience… at your expense! Sure enough, there are examples of agents who run away with the bankrolls of all of their players, such as “NYPokerKing” who absconded with his player's funds in late 2018.
PokerBros is a mobile poker app, similar to PPPoker. It's the newest, and therefore supposedly the best, incarnation of this type of poker platform. However, it inherited a ton of the features of its predecessors, including the agent/club model. Therefore, you really are trusting in your agent, whom you may never have met before, to act honestly and reliably with your funds.
Many people have said they had a good time with the soft PokerBros tables and were able to cash out their winnings with no issues. Others have been embroiled in disputes and had trouble getting paid. Moreover, there have been many stories of multi-accounting, collusion, and other forms of cheating at PokerBros. We urge you to play elsewhere so that you can avoid this kind of uncertainty where your money is concerned. Read our PokerBros review for additional information.
Pokerrrr 2 is yet another agent- and club-based app that contains interesting features that appeal to recreational players, like a gesture-based input system. However, it suffers from the same issues that plague all such apps, like the difficulty of finding honest agents and clubs. If you're not careful, you could see your funds seized by a disreputable club or affiliate, and you will have almost no avenues for reclaiming it.
Pokerrrr 2 also has pretty severe restrictions on the size of clubs, and it lacks many of the administrative tools that its competitors offer to make managing clubs easier. Combine this with the risks you're taking by dealing with any club-based room, and it's probably best to keep away from Pokerrrr 2. Head over to this well-researched Pokerrrr 2 review for the true lowdown on this app.
Are there any other online rooms for Americans that you have not listed in this guide? - Sure, there are a few. Mainly they are skins on networks that we have already covered. A skin is another company on a network that offers an identical product to other rooms. Hence, for the sake of brevity, we have chosen not to include some of those in the main section of the guide.
There are some other organizations that spread poker online for real money to Americans, but they are either too new or too niche to have aroused much attention. Therefore, we don't feel confident in advising our clients to sign up at these places; yet, they haven't necessarily demonstrated anything that would cause us to dismiss them as shady or rogue.
In the spirit of full disclosure, we decided to provide a full list of all poker websites that USA players can access. We may have missed a couple of the tinier ones that have just started up, but we have included almost every site of note. Here is our comprehensive list:
The federal government, since at least the time of The Wire Act of 1961[13], has maintained a tough stance against unregulated gambling, and it included online poker within its remit once technology made this possible. Yet, there are signs that these outmoded laws are increasingly falling by the wayside and have become basically unenforceable.
In the past, the Wire Act was interpreted by some arms of government to cover online poker. However, in 2011, shortly after Black Friday, the US Department of Justice reinterpreted the Wire Act[14] to be much more online poker friendly by holding that the Wire Act applies only to sports betting, not poker, casino games, bingo, or any other type of online wagering. The DoJ changed its mind in January 2019[15], claiming that the Wire Act in fact does prohibit online poker that crosses state lines. This new interpretation of the Wire Act has been declared invalid by a US District Court: a decision that was upheld on appeal. Therefore, the Wire Act has been ruled to apply only to sports betting and not to poker.
One thing to remember, though, irrespective of how the courts rule on the Wire Act's scope, is that even if read in the broadest possible manner, this legislation doesn't penalize individual players. It's the people running the sites and managing the games that the authorities are looking to go after.
The same is true of the UIGEA: a 2006 law that aims to cut off the funding mechanisms for real money online gaming. It punishes people accepting and facilitating payments for illegal internet gambling, but there's nothing in the wording of the UIGEA that targets ordinary players. In any event, most legal experts feel that the UIGEA doesn't affect internet poker because this game is not illegal at the federal level.
We constantly compile an extensive amount of information on the subject of legal online gaming (for real money); after all, we grind for a living! On this page, we strive to pass that information on to you so that you may be better informed of the options available to you, the American poker player, in your particular state or territory. If you would like to delve even more deeply into the way the law interacts with online poker, then browse over to our detailed guide to USA poker legal information where you will find a lot more to satisfy your curiosity.
The overwhelming majority of states have no restrictions or negative laws about virtual poker on the books, and the game is available to play 24/7/365 often even from one's Mac or mobile device! We have also included reviews above, highlighting the pros and cons of each gambling site, providing information on the cashout speeds, available games and traffic, rakeback data, whether they are Mac-friendly or not, and much more.
If you are interested in betting in the best online sportsbooks, gambling at online casino sites, or putting money on the ponies, most of the offshore poker sites we have reviewed will also happily accept your wagers on these pastimes as well.
Still have questions even after reading our comprehensive guide? Well, we're here to help you out. Below, you'll see a list of some of the most commonly asked questions about online poker.
ProfessionalRakeback.com picks the best online poker sites based on a variety of factors. These factors include, but are not limited to: software quality, deposit options, withdrawal speeds, amount and types of games offered, ease of contacting support as well as their competence in helping to resolve customer issues, promotions, and player traffic levels.
The best online poker sites for Americans are: Ignition Casino, SB Poker, and Black Chip Poker. Ignition is best because it has the most players. SB Poker is best at Mac and mobile app software. Black Chip Poker has the best online poker tournaments.
Yes. Playing real money poker online is simply a matter of picking one of the top offshore poker rooms and making a deposit.
Yes, online poker is legal in the US. You as a player are free to play at any poker room where you're accepted as a customer. For in-depth information, read our article about legality of poker in the US.
Bitcoin is the recommended deposit method to online poker sites due to ease of use and fast and free withdrawals. The Bitcoin deposit will be converted into USD, and converted back to BTC when you make a withdrawal. Credit cards may seem a convenient option but they come with a fee, and the withdrawal process is more complicated. Check out our guide to using Bitcoin for poker.
According to International and domestic laws regarding the "age of majority" human beings are adults at the age of 18. This is quite consistent across various countries and the US states. Any person 18 years or older is allowed to play on all of the aforementioned rooms.
We only recommend sites that we personally risk our own money on. Sites that we do not feel confident enough to play at ourselves are either in our Caution Section or listed in the Scam Section. If you're looking for safe online poker, then you'll find it at any of our partner rooms.
In our 14 years of operation here at Professional Rakeback, we have only recommended 2 sites that have failed. In one case we paid all of our player's rakeback out of our own pocket ($37,000+ USD). In the second case, we contacted our players and offered them extra bonuses, rakeback, and/or rewards on other poker sites until they recouped the entirety of any lost funds. We do our damnedest to protect your funds, our funds, and our reputation. We stand behind our recommendations and put our money where our mouth is.
Canada has more options available than the states. However, we typically recommend a similar group of sites because we find them to be soft, easy to withdraw from, and staffed with quality customer service reps. We actually have a similar styled online poker guide for residents of Canada and by reading the following link you can find what our experts recommend as the best online poker sites in Canada
None of the information on this web page should be construed as legal advice. While Professional Rakeback does its best to provide accurate and up to date information, new local, state, and federal legislation is being written, proposed, voted on, and passed into law constantly. It is ultimately the responsibility of the consumer to thoroughly research and comply with the laws in their particular jurisdiction.