This past Friday, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars players in the United States found out that they can no longer play on these poker networks for real money. The decision was made after the USA government came down with indictments against several of the top executives and bankers of these online poker sites, along with Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.
The .com domain names were seized by the Feds and a reminder was left to online poker players in America that what these poker sites were doing was a crime.
So what did they do wrong? From the charges that the United States government has levied against the men accused, none of the crimes mentioned directly said that online poker was illegal. What PokerStars and Full Tilt did wrong was intentionally misidentified the transactions when a player deposited money into their account. This lead to the bank fraud and money laundering charges that were issued.
Is Online Poker Legal?
So is online poker illegal in the United States? Yes … I mean no … I mean (shrugging shoulders). Washington D.C. just past a law for the district that online poker is legal within the District of Columbia. So that means we’re ok, right?
It would appear that the act of playing poker online for money is not illegal. The only thing that is illegal is misidentifying the process of accepting deposits. Telling someone that they received $100 worth of Golf balls when they deposited that money into a poker account is illegal and constitutes the laws broken by PokerStars and Full Tilt.
All online poker sites that accepted U.S. customers were assuming the same thing. The Internet gambling bill introduced in 2006 does not apply because “Internet Gambling” constitutes a game of chance. This is any bet that isn’t within your control whether you win or lose. That includes sports betting and any game where the “House” sets up the rules and controls the game. These poker sites contend that poker is a game of skill because there is no house. These sites only host the poker rooms where players compete against each other.
Playing Online Poker in the US Moving Forward
So in theory, if you do not lie about how you get the money into the players account, the online poker site can continue business as normal. This can be most easily seen in the case of Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. These two poker sites still allow there US players to play with their current bankrolls; but they specifically will not accept deposits or withdrawals.
That means if you had money in your Absolute or UB account, you can still sign up at a table and play online poker for real money.
So is there a legitimate way to deposit money to play poker online in the US?
I don’t really know the answer to that question. It’s kind of fuzzy and ambiguous. The poker sites that are still catering to players from the States do not allow you to use a credit card to deposit money. This seems to be clearly illegal as you can not even buy a lottery ticket at a store with a credit card.
But there is a new invention called an e-check which directly links to your bank account and is kind of like the reverse of a direct deposit. This allows online poker companies to accept deposits without lying about the transactions. This is still a gray subject but the online poker player really isn’t taking the risk.
The risk is being taken by the poker sites that accept U.S. poker players based upon the ambiguity of the current laws. None of these laws specifically state that online poker is illegal, and that is where these poker sites still up have room to maneuver. The Feds were careful not to mention that it was the online poker that they were targeting in this case. The language of the law specifically states that the crimes are bank fraud and money laundering.
Where can I still play poker online?
A recent study has shown that the online poker rooms have been sparsely populated after the big windfall on Friday. The top online poker sites that still allow US players have an average of between 300 and 1000 real money players. A lot of these sites are part of a poker network. When the poker sites share a network, the number of real money players at a given site will be a percentage of the amount playing on the network.
Whether this number will increase dramatically in the following weeks and months is unclear. Many casual online poker players will simply be afraid to play because of the lovely government seizure notice that has been placed on the former homepages of pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com.
But no matter what laws you enact to stop people from doing something (fairly or unfairly), people will continue to do the activities they enjoy. That is why I will present you with a couple of options for US poker players:
Bovada Poker – click here for more information.
Carbon Poker – click here for more information.
Doyles Room – click here for more information.
PlayersOnly – click here for more information.