Ever since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed in 2006, many Americans have had problems finding an online poker room that was exempt from the bureaucracy of the law. Which poker sites will accept American players? Which sites are the most secure when depositing and withdrawing money? Which sites will provide all of the most important things that a player looks for and still manage to provide an easy-to-use system to get started?
There are many sites available to US players. Even though the UIGEA severely complicated the process of making deposits and withdrawals to US online poker rooms, Americans make up the large majority of people who are playing poker online as well as the majority of successful professional poker players. Therefore, plenty of sites, such as Lock Poker, Bodog Poker, and Carbon Poker, not only accept US online poker players but also encourage them to play with incentives, such as matching the initial deposit at rates of 100-200%, free tickets into monthly tournaments, and numerous freerolls.
What you get in a US online poker room will likely be a result of what kind of effort you put in to find and get what you want. With the exception of Kentucky and Louisiana, US states allow online poker playing, so many sites have plenty of traffic, some with over 60,000 players on during peak hours. Large traffic on the site means that players will never have to wait more than a minute, whereas smaller sites, while they offer an intimacy and sometimes a level of support that simply can’t be managed by the biggest sites, will have a variable wait time.
Online poker rooms work best when they can be enjoyed by as many people as possible, so most sites strive to be compatible with as many different operating systems and processor speeds as possible. Many of the largest US poker rooms, such as Lock Poker, Carbon Poker, and Full Tilt Poker, are Mac compatible, and Lock Poker even supports Linux. Most sites manage to have visually appealing graphics that are not cumbersome, so that they can run on older or slower machines.
US online poker rooms cater to a wide variety of skill levels; remember, some of the best players in the worlds are from the US, and they have to practice somewhere. Whether you want to be in a room full of poker legends is completely up to you. Playing with professionals and near-professionals can be an excellent way to improve your game, if you’re willing to swallow your pride and learn from the masters. Playing with people of a considerably higher skill level than your own, however, is also an excellent way to lose a lot of money, so be careful when choosing a room. Many poker reviews will rate sites based on how skilled the average player is, advertising that a certain site has “plenty of low-skill players,” which means that there is plenty to be gained for a strong player, and a change to improve one’s game without suffering many losses if you’re just starting out.
Poker sites in the US are quite extensive, so the best course of action when picking one (or several) is to determine exactly what it is you need in a poker room and move forward from there.
If you enjoyed reading this article, please consider sharing it!
