If I had to do the order of how hard each US poker site is my list would be from hardest:

1) ACR

2) Merge

3) Bovada

4) Global


I don't play on Betonline/Chico so I can add that but how would you rank them?

Sad times for American players in unregulated states looking to play poker.

Can't find cash games anywhere that do not have a massive bot problem or some kind of cheating/collusion going on. ACR, Bovada, BOL, global, poker bros and app sites; all with their own massive problems.

The reality is every time you play now you will either be playing vs a bot and or cheated. Difficult fact to have to come to terms with if you still want to just casually play a little bit on a random Saturday afternoon.

Looking for some legal clarification.

Been playing on ACR since Feb with decent success. I was recently arrested and currently under active federal investigation for a work related white collar crime involving one of our vendors providing us stolen material (we were unaware it was stolen).

Obviously I need and will be on my best behavior until this is cleared up. Can I continue to play on ACR? All winnings would be reported with my CPA for tax purposes.

My attorney advised against it but this is far from their specialty. I'd like to provide them some legal clarification/insight and could use the communities help.

Sorry for the burner. Appreciate the help.

Asking a bunch of randoms in the internet for legal advice is one of the dumbest things you could do. Have you read some of the posts created here??

You are going to court, your personal behavior and decisions can help or sink you. Your attorney feels participating in online poker could hurt you.....

Best advice you can get from a forum, do not pay an attorney to represent you and then ignore their advice. Don't like their advice, seek other counsel.

Looking to play casually with spare time after work - microstakes really just to keep me entertained.

What is the best site bonus wise. I'm only depositing like $50 and playing the lowest stakes possible.

Thanks

Google search tells me its not legal. I been playing on bodog, bovada, ignition for years, never made a withdraw, but I did learn a lot for live games. So after my google search in 2020, it says online gaming is illegal in California. I did not know this, now I am afraid to deposit, but it is good practice.

It is not illegal, no players in the United States have been prosecuted for playing online poker. Use bitcoin to deposit and withdraw and you will be fine.

Well from the same Google search I read that people have been visited by the FBI concerning online transactions. I also read that banks would not allow certain bank transactions to be made. And how I stated, online poker is not legal in the US, my reference, Google. I do want to play but I also do not want to break any laws.

You can get a visit for online transactions, sure. There is o law that pertains to the "player". There are laws about enabling transactions and charging a fee/rake to play.

What did your searching turn up when you searched for actual cases of Cali people being arrested and convicted for playing poker online?

Back close to a decade ago, I was visited by Secret Service regarding some large wire transfers to my bank account (payouts from Full Tilt). Once they established it wasn't terrorism or kiddie porn related I never heard from them again.

It did not specify all that, but the point that police investigators can come to your door is not something I would not want to go through. And google clearly states online poker in 2020 is not legal in the US. And banks block transactions, so its all bad.

"Hey, Google. Is online poker illegal in the US?"

#1 of 9,470,000 results:

"Online poker is NOT illegal in the United States as a whole. There are a small number of states that have made the game against the law, like Washington State, but even in these jurisdictions, the anti-poker statutes are never enforced against ordinary players.

quora.com"

You don't understand what you are looking at. It is not legal in the sense of being regulated so our crooked politicians can seize accounts for taxes owed. There is not a single regulation or statute that pertains to the player.

Don't play if you don't want to, but at least know wtf you're talking about. UIGEA pertains to financial institutions enabling transaction to or from sites they deem bad. Police are not and have never shown up at someone's house because they played online poker. Go ask a cop....

Google isn't a source, and Google doesn't "clearly state" anything. Google is a search engine, that is giving you thousands of sources. It's up to you to determine which sources are credible, and if you can't do that well, you're going to spend a lot of your life being convinced of things that aren't true.

You seem to have some concept of this, since you're in this thread asking about it. But for some reason when you get answers contrary to what "Google is telling you", rather than digging deeper, you just argue with people that Google says otherwise. If you're convinced that Google is right no matter what anyone tells you, I'm not sure why you're here.

BTW, while Quora can be hit and miss, the answer Mike Haven gave you above from Quora is spot on IMO.

You've mentioned bank transactions a few times, and yes, that is definitely a problem for US players. While online poker isn't explicitly illegal for the vast majority of US players, the UIGEA does make it illegal for US financial institutions to process online poker transactions, which complicates things. As a result, a lot of US players use Bitcoin.

I made it more specific for mor better results. I went to Google and typed:

"is online poker legal in california 2020."

While online poker is not legal in California, live poker in brick-and-mortar card rooms is legal in the state, with players fortunate to have more card rooms to choose from than in any other state. ... In December 2019, the California Bureau of Gambling Control proposed new rules for the state's card rooms.

Then:
Is online gambling legal in California 2020?


California Online Gambling for 2020. In California, online casinos, online sportsbooks, and online poker gambling are all illegal. However, a few online gaming options are still available for California players including daily fantasy sports (DFS), sweepstakes online poker, sweepstakes online casino, horse race betting ...

Can you legally play online poker in the US?
There are currently 4 states that offer legal online poker for real money in the United States – New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. ... WSOP/888 US is currently the only poker site that shares online poker players between all three legal online poker states (NJ, Nevada & Delaware).




I am looking for things dated 2020. I want to play just making sure its legit.

Them feel free to play online poker. The legality of it pertains to operators. I'm an agent/affiliate business and get paid directly to US accounts. I asked up, down, and sideways if it was allowed with US players. The law pertains to operators and institutions that enable transactions.

What you want is...."is it illegal for me to play poker online in California". Then you will get far more accurate answers. Only the demented politicians in Washington make the game, specifically, illegal, although even those turds do not go after players.

I already typed, "is it illegal for me to play poker online in California". All different scenarios, but once you add the year 2020 to it, the most updated links in google say it is illegal.

The post that come up that say it is legal are old because I seen them before, but how I said adding the year 2020 to it, all links say it is illegal.

Has it ever happened to anyone for playing poker online? There are thousands of people playing in the US. If no one has been arrested why would they single you out and arrest you?


Google doesn't state anything. They just give you links to websites and they don't guarantee anything those websites say.

There is legal online poker my state and banks don't block transactions for the legal sites.

Yet people from my state also play on offshore sites. No one has ever been arrested for it.

Here's any easy answer for you if you don't think it's safe for you to play: just stop playing.

Why are you even posting in this thread? I would have assumed it was because you don't trust the results you were finding and wanted to ask people who would know from first hand experience. But then when people give you their (correct) answers, you keep coming back with Google results. If you don't want to believe anyone here, why are you even asking? Just go with what "Google says". And I'll say again, as has been pointed out to you multiple times, Google doesn't "say" anything - it gives you results from websites, and those links are what you should be posting if you want an intelligent conversation about this.

As for adding "2020" to your search - were the other results more than 15 years old? If not, what laws are you thinking were passed since the UIGEA that changed anything?

It's not "illegal" to play online poker in the States but here in 2020, why would you even want to? The sites are horrible and it's not even worth anyone's time. I've been playing a ton of online chess lately as there's been a huge boom in the game and online rated play is much more of a thing now due to COVID-19.

Really? WPN is alive and well, 7 years later still, it seems..

Alive and well? Did they get rid of bots? Is collusion still rampant?

I think some of this negativity is coming from players who haven't put in much time at the online tables lately. Things are pretty good right now. We *all* get greedy and ask for more but the huds, software, sites, and amount of traffic we have access to is light years ahead of where it once was post bf.

Police investigators are not going to come to your door..bc u play cards. Go to poker bros...you use an agent and nobody will know its real money. If your still worried, tell them you have info on election fraud. Lol.