PokerStars USA: How to Safely Play @ Stars While in America

Many online poker fans appreciate the large traffic and excellent software at PokerStars, one of the worldwide market leaders for internet card games. Americans are no exception – plenty of U.S.A. residents remember the experiences they had at PS before Black Friday in 2011 and are wondering how they can access bustling PokerStars USA lobbies again.

The short answer is that you cannot play on PokerStars from within the United States. There are very limited exceptions to this general rule, and we will go over every single one of them below.

The old PokerStars was truly a one-of-a-kind setup, and there is no site currently open to Americans that does everything quite as well. Nevertheless, there are a number of rooms that excel in various aspects. If you seek a new online poker site to play from the United States, check out the following reputable operators:

'STARS UNAVAILABLE IN MOST OF USA
Read About Alternative Legal US Sites

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PokerStars New Jersey

People in the Garden State are among the few Americans who have the opportunity to log on to PokerStars and take a seat in the virtual games for real money. This includes both NJ's residents as well as those who are just passing through or visiting the state. You can open an account and perform cashier functions from anywhere, but you must be physically located within the State of New Jersey to engage in real money gaming.

The company launched its NJ site in March 2016 to much fanfare in partnership with Resorts Casino Hotel, and it gained quite a few signups from people longing for a return to the good old days of USA online poker. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm was misplaced.

Although the PokerStars NJ software platform is nearly identical to the much-lauded client in use throughout most of the rest of the world, player volume is lacking. You see, this poker solution doesn't interconnect with the worldwide PokerStars.com room. It instead limits people from New Jersey to playing only against others in the same state.

The Cash Game Lobby at 'Stars NJ Suffers From a Lack of Games Particularly at High Stakes

Not only is this state-regulated site nowhere near its global counterpart in terms of customer liquidity, it's not even the largest online cardroom in NJ, instead having to settle for second place among licensed sites. The honor of biggest internet poker site for New Jersey goes to WSOP.com and 888poker, which are part of the All American Poker Network.

In New Jersey PokerStars, there are only about 220 cash game players online at any given moment, on average, as compared to the 3,500 active at the PokerStars global site.

The Cash Game Lobby for the Global PokerStars Site Is More Highly Populated

PokerStars NJ is a division of The Stars Group (formerly Amaya Gaming), and it holds a valid internet gaming license from the Division of Gaming Enforcement.

PokerStars NJ Cash Game Selection

Of all the mainstream poker rooms in existence on the internet, PokerStars has perhaps the biggest selection of card game variants, and this transfers over to the organization's New Jersey site as well. Not only are there No Limit Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha tables denominated up to $25/$50, but there's also quite an extensive lineup of Limit Hold'em, LO8, 8-game, 5 Card Omaha, Razz, and more displayed in the PokerStars Lobby.

It's important to be aware, though, that the games shown as available in the software and the games that people actually sit down for and play in are two distinct kettles of fish. According to our observations, the majority of these poker variants see zero action; the players all tend to be concentrated in just a few formats of the game.

During peak hours, you'll encounter a total of a few dozen NL Texas Hold'em games going, from the lowest spread stakes of $0.01/$0.02 up to $2.50/$5.00 and sometimes $5/$10. In addition, there are usually a handful of PL Omaha tables active with $1/$2 or $2/$5 being the highest blind level to see regular four-card poker running.

In big-bet Texas Hold'em, there are no heads-up PokerStars NJ tables. Most of the grinders here prefer six-max, and in fact, full ring is only offered at stakes between $0.25/$0.50 and $1/$2. Meanwhile, all the PLO tables have six seats. Here's a video of gameplay in a 'Stars NJ micro-stakes six-max cash game:

Beyond these two types of poker, you may sometimes find a couple of tables of “other” games actually being dealt out. PLO/8 seems to be the most popular of these.

Notably absent from the PokerStars New Jersey cash game offerings is fast-fold Zone Poker. Management probably evaluated the number of customers playing at the site on average and determined that the player pools just weren't there to support Zone.

PokerStars NJ Sit & Gos

After sampling the broad range of gameplay provided in PokerStars' ring game section, we were dismayed to discover that the SNG menu is much more restrictive. Heads-up hypers are offered in from $1 to $500 in both NLHE and PLO. The only other type of single-table contests to be found here are turbo six-max games, which are spread solely for Hold'em at buyins ranging from $1 to $200.

Even during the busiest times of day for this internet poker venue, we seldom saw more than two sit-n-goes playing out simultaneously. The overall low traffic levels at PokerStars NJ probably combine with the Spartan nature of the sit & go lobby to cause this dearth of running games.

PokerStars NJ Spin & Gos

Compensating somewhat for the lack of sit n' go action, the well-known PokerStars Spin & Go product is alive and well in New Jersey. This lottery-style poker tournament seats three and determines the prize pool by multiplying the buyin value by a random number from 2x to 2,400x.

Spin & Go is a winner-takes all affair, except if one of the three highest multipliers (2,400x, 240x, or 120x) is hit, in which case second and third place each receive between 8% and 10% of the prize pool. NLHE Spins are denominated at $1, $5, $10, and $25.

While the Spins section isn't busy enough to get into a game in seconds, it is possible to wait no more than a few minutes for two others to join at the lowest buyin levels. Higher-stakes action may involve longer waiting times.

PokerStars NJ Tournaments

The PokerStars tournament schedule is pretty jam-packed and contains such delights as Progressive Knockouts, satellites, and deep-stack events. Unfortunately for fans of massive MTT paydays, the guarantees associated with these tournaments are generally pretty paltry.

For instance, there's a Sunday Special here for a buyin of $91.80 + $8.20. Yet, U.S. residents who are reminiscing about the $1 million guaranteed Sunday Major at the main PokerStars .com worldwide site will undoubtedly be disappointed by the NJ Sunday Special's guarantee of just $85,000. It's a similar case with the Sunday High Roller: a $470 + $30 competition that promises just $50,000 in guaranteed prizes.

Some of the Guaranteed MTTs in the PokerStars NJ Lineup

Things are a bit better when there's a premier PokerStars series taking place. The latest installments of the PokerStars New Jersey Spring Championship of Online Poker (NJSCOOP) and PokerStars New Jersey Championship of Online Poker (NJCOOP) each boasted more than $1.5 million guaranteed.

A Tournament Table at New Jersey 'Stars

Still, these seven-figure commitments merely place PokerStars in contention with offshore competitors. Honestly, there are many MTT series, hosted by USA-friendly international internet poker sites, that put 'Stars NJ to shame, including the Black Diamond Poker Open at Ignition and the OSS Cub3d at the Winning Poker Network.

PokerStars NJ Promotions

There are quite a few promotional deals granted by PokerStars to its user base. Some of them are intended solely for new customers, but others are ongoing promos that deliver steady value to people who continue to play at the site regularly.

First Deposit Offers

If you intend to open up a new account at PokerStars NJ and make a deposit, then there are two separate offers for you to choose from. You can take advantage of one of them as long as you're new to the New Jersey PokerStars subsidiary even if you previously had an account at the main, global poker room:

$100 Bonus Play: Upon opting in on the promotions page and playing a single real money cash game hand or betting $1 in the casino within five days of creating your account, you'll be able to claim $50 in poker rewards and another $50 for the PokerStars Casino.

This consists of tournament tickets and casino bonuses that will be paid to you on the day you qualify and the subsequent five days. The payout schedule is as follows:

• Day 0: 2 x $5 Spin & Go Tickets
• Day 1: $10 Casino Bonus
• Day 2: 2 x $5 Spin & Go Tickets + 1 $10 Tourney Ticket
• Day 3: $10 Casino Bonus
• Day 4: 2 x $10 Tourney Tickets
• Day 5: $30 Casino Bonus

There are no wagering requirements attached to the poker tickets. However, each dollar of casino bonus must be cleared by earning 2 redemption points.

100% up to $600 Bonus: You can elect to instead snag a 100% matching bonus on your initial deposit up to a maximum of $600. As a matter of fact, you're allowed to make up to three separate deposits within 60 days, and all of them will add together to determine the size of your bonus as long as it doesn't exceed the $600 cap. The bonus releases $10 every time you rake $28, for a 36% PokerStars rakeback rate, and you have four months from the moment of each deposit to earn out the bonus associated with that deposit.

Stars Rewards

As long as you opt into the Stars Rewards program, you'll earn reward points as you pay rake and contribute tournament fees. You'll see a progress bar near the top of the poker lobby, which will increase the more points you get. Complete the bar to receive a chest.

When you open a chest, you'll receive goodies like freeplays and StarsCoin. Then the progress bar will reset, and you'll be given a new points target to achieve to obtain the next chest.

StarsCoin can be spent in the Rewards Store. This is a way for you to turn your StarsCoin into merchandise, tournament tickets, casino bonuses, and other valuable freebies.

The PokerStars Rewards Store

The number of points needed per chest starts at 333 (corresponding to $3.33) in rake and reaches as high as 100,000 ($1,000 in rake) as you collect more and more chests. However, the increase in rewards available through the highest level of chest makes this increase in cost well worth it.

The initial chests (Blue) that users receive are worth only around 15% rakeback. However, customers who rake enough will be able to redeem Black chests at an effective 33% rakeback rate. Your progress in the system drops down a level every 28 days that pass without your collecting a chest. At the highest Black level, you'll have to rake at least $1,000 within 28 days to maintain your progress.

PokerStars NJ Cashier

Compared to what you might be used to dealing with at offshore poker sites, the cashier at PokerStars NJ certainly appears robust. Here are all the methods supported for adding money to your account:

Notably, the convenient PayPal e-wallet can be used to fund your 'Stars NJ account. It actually works as billed here as opposed to certain other sites that have loudly bragged about their PayPal compatibility (*cough* Global Poker *cough* 64spades, which ended up not working out as planned over the long term.

Other interesting payment channels that you might not be familiar with are Resorts Cage, which refers to showing up at Resorts Casino with cash in hand; PayNearMe, a system whereby you can make a deposit at 7-Eleven stores throughout New Jersey; and VanillaDirect, which is supported at more than 50,000 retail locations around the country and lets you bring cash to a location and have it reflected in your PokerStars balance.

Most of these deposit processors are also present in the withdrawal menu. However, PayNearMe, Vanilla Direct, and Instant Bank Transfer are not available for cashouts.

PokerStars NJ Mobile Poker

It's possible to play at NJ PokerStars from your mobile device. There are apps for both iOS and Android available for download.

Pretty much all of the games and tables featured in the desktop client are also present for mobile. Check out the footage below of a Spin & Go session on the PokerStars Android app:

PokerStars NJ Casino

PokerStars has pivoted in recent years toward diversifying its revenue streams through the provision of other types of gambling besides poker. To this end, it has incorporated casino gaming within its product portfolio. This casino is accessible both through the poker client and via the web. You can play the games through iOS and Android apps as well.

At launch time, the number of games present was well below what most other internet casinos had – even other casinos active in the small New Jersey market. There were fewer than 200 slots along with less than a dozen table games and a handful of video poker options, but PokerStars has been improving its NJ casino in recent years. There are now around 500 slots, a couple dozen table games, and a few video poker titles

“Shields of the Wild” Slot Machine

There is a PokerStars NJ Live Dealer Casino with a decent number of games. In addition, this site does have non-video based multiplayer casino games with each participant occupying a designated position at the table and being able to type in the chatbox to communicate with others. This could become a rather unique aspect of PokerStars' casino gaming, but there are only a few games spread for multi-player at present.

FoxBet NJ Sportsbook

The sports betting division of PokerStars, known as FoxBet, replaced the previous BetStars online sportsbook in New Jersey, which debuted following the May 2018 Supreme Court decision in Murphy v. NCAA, ending the federal ban on this form of wagering.

Making a Wager at FoxBet

FoxBet allowed PokerStars customers to use the same funds from their poker and casino account to place sports bets, including In-Game betting section where the odds constantly shifted as the play progressed.

However, the decision was made by parent company Flutter to shut down the FOX Bet brand effective Aug. 31, 2023. PokerStars account holders looking for a way to place their sports wagers can join up at a full-featured USA-serving online bookmaker.

PokerStars NJ Final Thoughts

While we would have liked to have seen a regional room with the same vibrancy and allure as the main PokerStars .com site, the NJ offering falls quite a bit short. This is only to be expected as the population of New Jersey is just over nine million while there are hundreds of millions of people in the worldwide areas that PokerStars serves. Those who are just visiting the state are also able to register and play, but even when we consider these transient players as part of the total, we can easily see that there's no chance of this single state hosting as many real money poker customers as the rest of the world combined.

Because it's licensed by the State of New Jersey, all of PokerStars' operations in this jurisdiction are overseen by the NJ Department of Gaming Enforcement. Staying in compliance with the mandates of this regulator hasn't always been easy for the poker site, as evidenced by the time it received a fine for inadequate geo-blocking functionality in its software:

Anyone living in or planning to visit New Jersey will probably want to check this site out. For all its shortcomings, it does provide some excellent bonus value, and it is a reputable, fair place to play with great poker software. However, for your day-to-day grind, you might do better to find an offshore site, most of which have greater traffic levels and thus more games to take a seat in.

Read more about your options as a New Jerseyite in our overview of the leading NJ offshore poker rooms.

Play Money

It is actually possible for American users to enjoy poker at PokerStars but only for practice chips. These play money games are offered to customers in 49 states (sorry Washington State).

PokerStars Play Money Cash Game Table

Apart from a certain amount of chips that you can get for free, you have to pay to purchase more of them. It's impossible to cash these chips out even if you should win a billion of them. There used to be online markets for PokerStars play chips, but the site has effectively prohibited this practice by disallowing play money person-to-person transfers.

The Various Play Chip Options for Sale at PokerStars

You might as well devote any money you intended to commit to purchasing practice chips to legitimate offshore poker rooms instead. At least this way, you'll be able to make a withdrawal if you grind up a bankroll. Minimum deposits at these poker rooms are pretty reasonable, $25 or less in most cases.

PokerStars Play

PokerStars, in addition to its regular play money lobby in the download client, has also developed a mobile app called PokerStars Play for iOS and Android devices. This is a social casino/cardroom that's open to residents of the United States (except Washington State) and Australia. It's strictly for entertainment purposes, and the chips you win cannot ever be cashed out. In addition to poker, it has slot machines and Live Dealer casino titles.

What About Home Games?

The PokerStars Home Games section lets people compete against their friends, work colleagues, online forum companions, and other individuals who are part of the same Poker Club. Nevertheless, U.S.A. players are only permitted to play with fake chips even within the strictly controlled membership model of PokerStars Home Games.

Some enterprising souls have realized that they can set up play chip Home Games and use them to play for real money by assigning each chip a cash value and then making money transfers among themselves. This works in theory, but in order for everything to be aboveboard, you have to know and trust everyone else in your Poker Club.

This is quite a different experience from signing on to the poker platform and sitting opposite all kinds of players from around the world. You'd also better hope that the site doesn't get wind of what you're doing, or else your club will be shut down.

What About Nevada, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Michigan?

Individuals living in one of the other four states for legal, regulated poker might assume that they can play on PokerStars, but they're only half right. PokerStars operates in Pennsylvania and Michigan, but it does not do business in Nevada or Delaware.

In November 2019, PokerStars arrived in Pennsylvania's nascent online gaming market as the first internet poker operator in the state. This followed the passage of an online casino and poker bill in October 2017.

In Michigan, the needed legislation to allow licensed poker rooms to conduct business online was passed in December 2019. PokerStars duly appeared on the scene in January 2021. With the accession of Michigan to the MSIGA in early 2022, PokerStars was eventually able to combine the player pools of its New Jersey and Michigan cardrooms at the beginning of 2023.

Delaware's supervised internet poker market uses the software mandated by the state lottery, which reached an arrangement with 888, shutting PokerStars out of the market completely. Nevada has “bad actor” clauses in its enabling legislation for online poker, which will keep PS out of the market for several years more.

New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware, and Michigan now have a liquidity-sharing compact whereby sites are allowed to combine their player traffic across all three states.

For a long time, only 888 (branded in some cases as WSOP) has really been the beneficiary of this arrangement because it was the only operator licensed to do business in more than one of these states. 888 has combined together the player volume from its Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware operations into one pool. Although 888 also operates the WSOP.com cardroom in Michigan, it curiously remains a standalone site, and there have not been any announcements regarding its potential inclusion in the multi-state player traffic sharing arrangement.

Pokerstars is the only other firm to benefit much from the MSIGA because it was able to consolidate its Michigan and New Jersey cardrooms into one shared liquidity pool.

With the recent court ruling limiting the scope of the Wire Act, these kinds of interstate compacts for igaming have been deemed perfectly fine from a legal perspective. Therefore, there's the possibility Pennsylvania will join in the existing agreement or negotiate a new one. Should this occur, PokerStars would be in a prime position to capitalize on it.

What About VPNs?

Some laud the advantages of deploying VPN (virtual private network) technology to circumvent the PokerStars ban on new account registrations from the United States. This refers to a system that disguises your computer's location and makes it appear to be in a region that PokerStars accepts customers from.

Anyone who advocates this course of action is either woefully ignorant of how internet poker actually works or is attempting to give you bad advice. There are numerous reasons why running a VPN to surreptitiously log on to 'Stars is just asking for trouble.

First of all, you'll encounter issues when attempting to request a payout because you will very likely be subject to account verification procedures. This means you would have to set up a fake address in another country, which might be more trouble than it's worth.

Furthermore, PokerStars security has developed procedures to deal with anyone who might be playing from a prohibited jurisdiction. As part of the detection process, the poker client scans through the list of your running programs. You could get in trouble and have your account banned and balance seized if you're running VPN software. The same is true of other mechanisms for playing from a disallowed country, such as the use of Team Viewer or other remote desktop applications.

PokerStars is allowed to gather as much information as it can from your machine to decide if you're in violation of the rules. This is explicitly laid out in the PokerStars End User License Agreement:

15.1 We may (in addition to our other rights) take steps to detect and prevent the use of Prohibited Tools and Services and Prohibited Player Assistance Practices. You must not attempt to bypass, interfere with, or block such steps in any way, whether by using software designed for the purpose or otherwise (to do so would be a serious breach of the General Terms and therefore a Prohibited Event).

PokerStars has confiscated the balances of customers found to be circumventing the terms and conditions by accessing the site from prohibited countries. This is even true for users from allowed countries that use a VPN while traveling through banned parts of the globe. Take a look at this first-hand report from the Twoplustwo forums:

While we do have a small amount of sympathy for this poster, this feeling is overwhelmed by our incredulity that anyone would think such a course of action would be without risk. Ultimately, we largely concur with the first response made to this post:

Even big-name individuals aren't immune from the ever-vigilant personnel at the PokerStars security team. 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event runner-up Gordon Vayo ran afoul of the poker room after they contended that he was using a VPN from the United States when he scored $700K in a Spring Championship of Online Poker event. Gordon claims that he has submitted proof that he was in Canada at the time, and the dispute ended up in court.

PokerStars Decline

Lest you be hanging your head in dismay at the difficulty of joining PokerStars games as a U.S. player, let us assure you that you're not missing much — or least not as much as you would have a decade ago. Simply put, this virtual poker room has gone downhill in the intervening time.

Much of this decline is a result of the acquisition of PokerStars by Amaya, Inc. (now called The Stars Group) in June 2014. This publicly traded organization has a different philosophy than the old owners of the company did. Amaya has put shareholders and short-term financial results at the forefront and relegated player concerns to the sidelines.

There is some hope that these trends may be reversed following the purchase of The Stars Group by Flutter Entertainment in 2020. However, it's too early to tell just yet.

Not only has Amaya raised the rake and tournament fees, but it has also done away with the old VIP club, replacing it with an abomination called “Chests.”

Not This Type of Chests Unfortunately

The Chests program cut rewards by more than half for dedicated grinders, and it's so confusing and variable that users didn't really know what to expect in terms of freebies for a given number of hands played at particular stakes. PokerStars has since published information regarding the value of chests of various levels, at least for its New Jersey room, so users now have a better idea of what they're worth. Unfortunately, chests still deliver significantly less value than the old PokerStars VIP program.

This Chest is More What PokerStars Has in Mind
Note: That isn't gold - it's rice cakes. Ignore the yellow color; they're good for you. We swear!

Other unfavorable alterations to the way the firm does business include the addition of currency conversion fees, the retroactive restriction of affiliate commissions to the first two years of rake generated by a referred player, and a failure to adequately explain its corporate decisions to the player base.

How Can I Play Online Poker?

In conclusion, we must counsel you that it's impractical and too risky for you to try to play at PokerStars from the United States. Even those in New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania who can enjoy the 'Stars real money games are ring-fenced to a small pool of games that will likely leave them disappointed.

This doesn't mean that you can't play internet poker though. There are a number of trustworthy offshore online poker sites that cater to the American market. They have profitable welcome bonuses, robust traffic levels, and speedy payouts. You can learn more about these solid operators by reading our U.S.A. online poker guide.

If you still have questions about PokerStars USA legalities and information, then look below for possible answers.