Is Online Poker Legal

The short answer:

Online poker players have absolutely nothing to bother with. The only time you can find struggling with internet poker in the USA can be in case you actually owned a poker site where players can start to play for real money.

The long answer

Online poker resides in a very legal grey area in the United States. There are no federal laws that specifically outlaw the adventure. However, some politicians have attemptedto apply the wire act to on-line poker. There has been much debate over internet poker in recent times but up to now, the right to play poker on the internet has withstood the exam.

Online poker has been a possibility for US citizens since the late 1990s. Some players have played for years and years online and there is yet to be a case of a player charged with playing poker on the internet. The law is just too big vague to make it an excellent case for just about any player being charged with a criminal offense.

Where you would get having problems with internet poker is if you actually started an on-line poker site where players could play online the real deal money. In that case, you can get in all kinds of trouble. The states similar to their monopolies on gaming in order to rest assured they are going to prosecute you in case you try to start out a texas holdem site or hold an underground poker game.

Although some states (especially Washington State) have laws about the books against internet poker, no player has yet been involved in an offence for dewapoker playing poker online. Existing laws are simply just too vague and poker is too popular because there to be a realistic chance of anyone actually getting in trouble for playing poker on the computer. Additionally, public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of on-line poker so even most overzealous DA would think before taking action against an poker online player.

The UIGEA

The UIGEA, or Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, was signed into law in 2006. This act doesn't make online poker or gambling online illegal. This act instead targets banks and finance institutions, demanding that they identify poker and gambling transactions and block them.

To date, banks have had extreme difficulty enforcing this act. Billions of transactions take place every single day in the US and banks not have the resources to recognize individual transactions. In late 2009, the implementation of the UIGEA was delayed for 6 months to allow for more debate and give banks more time to abide by the law.

So far, the UIGEA have proven to become an impotent piece of legislation. The only effect the UIGEA has received is sometimes plastic card transactions to poker sites are blocked. In those cases, players simply pick a different deposit method and carry on as normal.

So what's the final word?

Note that I'm not just a lawyer and also this doesn't constitute legal advice but I can tell you that you have absolutely nothing to bother with with internet poker. US citizens have a to do what they really want using own money in their very own homes. It's perfectly legal to experience poker in the casino setting so it is difficult to justify it being illegal to play online in the home.

If you want to learn internet poker, do it. I've played online poker for years so have millions of other poker players. As long as you don't actually own a poker site, you will be fine.