Online Poker Is Still a Good Opportunity for Serious Players

State of Online Poker Fall 2010 – the online poker landscape has been changing for the USA player in the last few years since the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act or UIGEA. Congress has tried to keep online gambling legal to boost their revenue pie, but the majority of online poker rooms have decided to ban USA players from playing at their sites. So what is the legal status of online poker in the USA?

The 7Meter Online Poker Act of 2010 was congress’s answer to the UIGEA. The act seemed to satisfy minimum government scrutiny and implementation, however, two years after its passing congress did another backflip on the internet gambling question. The Safe Port Act was presented to the President as a solution to the UIGEA confusion. But little did the President know that the UIGEA’s ambiguity would be sorted out by voluntary industry codes of conduct imposed on all publicly traded poker sites.

The implementation of the UIGEA has turned the poker industry upside down. Industry leaders like Party Poker, Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, Absolute Poker and others have announced that they will no longer accept USA poker players. Poker Rooms still allow USA players to play at their sites, but many, especially large poker rooms like Poker Stars and Party Poker will no longer accept players from the USA.

While this is going on, many poker sites continue to allow USA players to play for real money at their poker rooms. Bank wire transactions (SFPA) are still available for making deposits to you poker account from the USA. Including the United States players in the industry are still in large numbers.

So what does all of this mean. Will you be able to still play online poker for money at these sites?

Most likely the answer is “No”. The very large poker rooms like Poker Stars and Party Poker have decided to stop accepting USA players. The whole point of implementing the UIGEA is to have these poker sites stop taking wagers from Americans. Now, it’s going to be more difficult for those of you that live in the USA to play online poker for money. But don’t worry, there are still many places that accept you poker and bingo money from the USA. Like my handy list that I created using your recent search term of “online poker USA”.

Here’s the thing. There are still many reputable online poker sites that are accepting USA poker players. Even more are being added all the time to this list. So you should still explore finding a few reliable places for you to play online poker. But first, you need to understand what’s going on with all this new legislation.

Three years after the UIGEA was signed into law, it still hasn’t gone into effect and it’s still a mystery on how this bill got through congress. But it did get through somehow. Many sites like Party Poker, which uses the PartyGaming system to process their online poker games, have seen their share of players from the USA decrease by around 30% this past summer. Other sites like Bodog and Ultimate Bet have seen decreases as well.

Some sites like Absolute Poker, Betfair Poker, The Betting Site, The Poker Hour, The Wheel Casino, all three of these sites have seen decreases as well. The only one of these sites that haven’t seen a decrease is Full Tilt Poker that still accepts USA players.

So what’s the final tally? It looks like it will be that most online poker rooms will continue to accept USA poker players. But, if you live in the USA, you may want to play on some other sites, especially if you want to still play your favorite game. If you live in the USA, you may want to search for other online poker sites that are still accepting USA players.