Is Online Poker illegal in the U.S?

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was made a law in 2006, and began being enforced on the first of June 2010.

The UIGEA basically states, that it is illegal to place a wager or bet, or recieve a wager or bet online , where it is unlawful under any law to do so.

This means that the US-players are not able to deposit via creditcard, due to the blocking of there transactions by banks or other financial institutions. There are however often options available for american players as well.


The poker sites atempted to combat this by creating .net sites that would offer just play money, but the players would still in turn be able to make a deposit through other methods.

Since the implimentation of the UIGEA we have not seen a huge drop in poker traffic acrossed the poker world, and there are many groups, such as the Poker Players Alliance, the ppa, that are atempting to get poker legalized and regulated in the US .

Part of the PPA's mission is to protect and to advocate for the right of poker players to play online. former U.S. Senator Sen. D'Amato's is a member, and his responsibilities include Congressional lobbying. In April 2008 the PPA claimed over 1,000,000 members.

Since the passage of UIGEA, several members of the United States Congress have introduced bills to overturn or revise it.
To sum all of this up, it is not, and has never been illegal to play online poker. The only thing that gives players trouble ,is depositing on a given site.