What is it like playing on legal US poker sites?

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FoBreeze

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Anyone been playing "legal" poker in the US yet? I live in PA and we are about to get it..

Curious to know if the other states have combined into a pool yet, where players from other states can play each other?

I'm also wondering if anyone know if casino employees are allowed to play on these sites... Does anyone know if they are allowed to play or not? That's a really big question I am really wanting to know...

In addition to that, how are the games on the sites? Are there enough players? Has it gotten any better with more and more states legalizing it?
 
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jonlama

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You can play online pretty much anywhere in the US, as far as I know. There are some state laws against it, but there are several sites that operate in the US. This forum has a review posted of the most reputable, as well as less reputable sites. I'm no expert here, but when I've joined poker sites they haven't asked me about my job. Look at the reviews, but ignition, Bovada and ACR are all pretty good sites. lots of games, players, good software, reputable accounting practices.
 
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FoBreeze

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How do you know they are reputable when no one regulates them? Sure, I know people that play on those sites... However from what I've heard they seem to allow bots and things to run on their sites. I would think this is less common among regulated poker sites in the US I would think.

I feel like the legal poker that is coming out would have more real players and people that want to try it out since it's something new... So I would think more bad players too...

However, I remember someone saying that there weren't a ton of players on NJ sites when it first came out... Wondering if it's improved at all...

Thanks for the reply.
 
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FoBreeze

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Bump... How come nobody seems to know this information?
 
TeamPainter

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Where in PA do you live? I live near Quakertown, may or may not be moving back to Youngstown, OH.

I have been playing on sportsbetting.ag for a month now. Seems to be a great site, LOVE the software. Not a lot of traffic in early morning hours though. Thank god I play cash tables, gave sit-n-go's a try there, to no avail. You can forget about SNG's early morning through early afternoon.

If you haven't started yet, try sportsbetting.ag. Great customer service so far.
 
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FoBreeze

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I've tried those sites before... What is it that there's nobody out there that has experience with playing on actual legal sites? Part of it might have to do with smaller player pools... Maybe the legal stuff that's out right now is just that bad I guess?

If it is that bad, isn't there anyone out there that can say "Man I played in NJ and it was horrible. I went keep playing on Americas Cardroom because these sites are horrible"

Or maybe the people that play on these sites are having such a great time that they don't visit message boards anymore..

I've posted on this topic several times and can't get any information man...
 
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Skidmonkey57

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NJ player.

Hello (Poker) world! I play at several NJ only sites. In descending order of players on the sites: poker stars, 888 Poker, party poker and Pala Poker. Pala opens its poker tables from 5pm to About 10pm. The rest of the time only the Casino games are open there. Party poker offers 6 to 8 freeroll tourneys a day to attract more players to their site. 888Poker and pokerstars seem to have the better traffic and cash game availability.. fish bowls may be nice but I feel like I’m playing ‘stunted’ poker.
 
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FoBreeze

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Hello (Poker) world! I play at several NJ only sites. In descending order of players on the sites: Poker Stars, 888 Poker, Party Poker and Pala Poker. Pala opens its poker tables from 5pm to About 10pm. The rest of the time only the Casino games are open there. Party poker offers 6 to 8 freeroll tourneys a day to attract more players to their site. 888Poker and PokerStars seem to have the better traffic and cash game availability.. fish bowls may be nice but I feel like I’m playing ‘stunted’ poker.



Great to finally hear from someone that has experience with this! Thanks for your reply.

To you and anyone else that has played on the legal sites, do the "popular" ones like Poker Stars and 888 Poker have games 24/7? What are the popular stakes?

Also, BIG QUESTION, do poker dealers from casinos that work in your state allowed to play on any of the sites? Really trying to find this out, but nobody knows...
 
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muazkkh1996

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acr is pretter good so is Black chip poker,i play on both
 
onione6ix

onione6ix

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All the USA facing sites could use some work . Betonline, ACR, and Ignition casino are your best bets. Made withdraws from all of them sites. Still alot of bad USA players out there. Be careful I try to never leave large amounts sitting on any Site.
 
RutgersOneTime

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prize pools are smaller ofcourse, but in NJ it was very nice being able to take a quick trip to AC to withdraw from the casino cages.
 
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sharonsway

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I wish to speak about Global Poker and my experience with it and the fact that I will never again play on that site. I played in their satellites, which was 55 cents for the $15,000 guaranteed Grizzly game and $1.10 for the $40,000 Grizzly game and I had also signed up for the satellites for the $100,000 Grizzly game. I won both the satellites for the 15 and 40 thousand dollar games and when I went to the schedule to see when they played, they all played on the same day with just an hour apart and an hour of late registration. I am a fairly decent poker player and so, I knew I would still be in the $40,000 game, which started first, when the $15,000 game began and sure enough, I was. Their tables are not separate from the site, like on other sites, where you can cascade or tile the tables, NO!. You must flip and flop between tables and that messes with me and sure enough, I got all messed up and wound up hitting call and raise on the wrong table or game. Anyway, when I expressed this to the Global Staff, all they could tell me was to focus and there was no way for me to unregister either, so I was stuck. Also, they do not take the next BB to even out their tables, they take players randomly and they informed me, when I brought that up to them, that you might be the BB 4 or 5 times in a row, because they randomly pick players to move. Anyway, I am done with that site.
 
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derpaderp

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I played betonline for a while until they took away the micros, then acr but the servers kept going down for both. I haven’t played online in a while and hesitate due to lack of stability and regulation.
 
plastilin898

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Russia is not legalized poker, and it is not known when legalized ((
 
mtl mile end

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Bump... How come nobody seems to know this information?

......I've posted on this topic several times and can't get any information man...

Great to finally hear from someone that has experience with this! Thanks for your reply.

To you and anyone else that has played on the legal sites, do the "popular" ones like Poker Stars and 888 poker have games 24/7? What are the popular stakes?

Also, BIG QUESTION, do poker dealers from casinos that work in your state allowed to play on any of the sites? Really trying to find this out, but nobody knows...

I think that you are discovering first hand why there are a limited number of responses to this query. People who are forced/choose to play on these sites are generally not members of CC. While there are a number of CC members from States like PA that are expecting legalization, these members are probably already here, playing on "better" sites like ACR/BCP, BOL, and SB. There is no CC presence on PokerStars.nj, nor .nv, nor .fr, .sp, .it, etc, etc. These sites, I would assume, have (will have) tiny player pools compared to pokerstars.com. Australian members who got banned from PS.com are still here, happily playing in CC Home Game events on PS, and other CC events on the US facing sites. There was some participation lost when india opted out of PS (I don't think they can even play on ACR, BOL, etc), and I haven't been around long enough to have observed the effects of france, Spain, portugal, Italy, (not to mention the US), et al opting out. I think you'll be lucky to get a couple of responses from members with actual experience on any of these sites.

As for Casino employees not being allowed to play, I don't think that would ever be an issue except in a State like Nevada where the economy is so gambling-based that Legislators would have thought of this before legalizing online poker. I have never been asked what my occupation is when registering on a poker site. But then again, I have never registered on PokerStares.pa.
 
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jaydaddy0325

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I'm praying "like many others" that this wire act gets resolved so we can all get poker back
 
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FoBreeze

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I think that you are discovering first hand why there are a limited number of responses to this query. People who are forced/choose to play on these sites are generally not members of CC. While there are a number of CC members from States like PA that are expecting legalization, these members are probably already here, playing on "better" sites like ACR/BCP, BOL, and SB. There is no CC presence on PokerStars.nj, nor .nv, nor .fr, .sp, .it, etc, etc. These sites, I would assume, have (will have) tiny player pools compared to PokerStars.com. Australian members who got banned from PS.com are still here, happily playing in CC Home Game events on PS, and other CC events on the US facing sites. There was some participation lost when India opted out of PS (I don't think they can even play on ACR, BOL, etc), and I haven't been around long enough to have observed the effects of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, (not to mention the US), et al opting out. I think you'll be lucky to get a couple of responses from members with actual experience on any of these sites.

As for Casino employees not being allowed to play, I don't think that would ever be an issue except in a State like Nevada where the economy is so Gambling-based that Legislators would have thought of this before legalizing online poker. I have never been asked what my occupation is when registering on a poker site. But then again, I have never registered on PokerStares.pa.



I can’t say that I agree that non regulated sites are better than the new regulated sites. Most of the illegal site are bot city and there’s no regulation, so there’s no way to prove there’s no scam going on...

Have you registered on the legal sites in a different state?

Also regarding NV, they actually are one of the most lenient states there are. If you are a dealer at a casino in NV, you can even play live poker at the casino you work for if you aren’t working obviously. It’s the conservative states with the ass backward politions like Ohio they say “you aren’t allowed to smoke cigarettes if you work here”. Also in Ohio they aren’t allowed to play at ANY casino in the entire state if you are employeed by a casino! What messed up laws they have
 
mtl mile end

mtl mile end

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I can’t say that I agree that non regulated sites are better than the new regulated sites. Most of the illegal site are bot city and there’s no regulation, so there’s no way to prove there’s no scam going on...

Have you registered on the legal sites in a different state?

Also regarding NV, they actually are one of the most lenient states there are. If you are a dealer at a casino in NV, you can even play live poker at the casino you work for if you aren’t working obviously. It’s the conservative states with the ass backward politions like Ohio they say “you aren’t allowed to smoke cigarettes if you work here”. Also in Ohio they aren’t allowed to play at ANY casino in the entire state if you are employeed by a casino! What messed up laws they have
I referred to the non regulated sites as "better" in quotation marks to qualify the actual play. They have largish customer bases, and games are regularly available in (almost) all time zones. I guarantee you that pokerstars.pa, or (governmentrunpoker).pa will have microscopic player pools (and very time restricted opportunities) compared to ACR or BOL. I also suspect that they are "better" since no one seems to be raving about state run sites on CC. It may be that no one from New Jersey has ever left the client of pokerstars.nj long enough to post on CC because it is so amazing, but I doubt that. In terms of legality and accountability, regulated sites are obviously superior to the .ag type.


I live in canada, so I play on PS, PP, 888, ACR, BOL, SB, and a bunch of other sites. I have never tried the Provincially run online sites. Since gambling is Provincially regulated in Canada, the various Provinces' Gambling Authorities have banded together to form an online poker network that is available to about half (geographically, I think) of Canadians. I have to assume that this was done to increase the player pool. There is at least one thread dedicated to it on CC. I am sure the player pool is larger and the games more available on the myriad sites that I already play at.

As for casino employees playing online, I really think you should be asking the State of Pennsylvania Gaming Authorities that one.
 
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FoBreeze

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I referred to the non regulated sites as "better" in quotation marks to qualify the actual play. They have largish customer bases, and games are regularly available in (almost) all time zones. I guarantee you that pokerstars.pa, or (governmentrunpoker).pa will have microscopic player pools (and very time restricted opportunities) compared to ACR or BOL. I also suspect that they are "better" since no one seems to be raving about state run sites on CC. It may be that no one from New Jersey has ever left the client of pokerstars.nj long enough to post on CC because it is so amazing, but I doubt that. In terms of legality and accountability, regulated sites are obviously superior to the .ag type.


I live in Canada, so I play on PS, PP, 888, ACR, BOL, SB, and a bunch of other sites. I have never tried the Provincially run online sites. Since gambling is Provincially regulated in Canada, the various Provinces' Gambling Authorities have banded together to form an online poker network that is available to about half (geographically, I think) of Canadians. I have to assume that this was done to increase the player pool. There is at least one thread dedicated to it on CC. I am sure the player pool is larger and the games more available on the myriad sites that I already play at.

As for casino employees playing online, I really think you should be asking the State of Pennsylvania Gaming Authorities that one.

Oh if I lived in Canada, I’d just play on PS... why would Canada allow both (a similar system to the states and legalize the already regulated global sites as well)? I didn’t even kno Canada was trying to copy the wacko politicians in the US...

And I’ve emailed regulators and people who wrote articles about it and nobody replies... it’s quite amazing how nobody can answer that question... i guess I’ll have to wait and see
 
mtl mile end

mtl mile end

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Oh if I lived in Canada, I’d just play on PS... why would Canada allow both (a similar system to the states and legalize the already regulated global sites as well)? I didn’t even kno Canada was trying to copy the wacko politicians in the US...

And I’ve emailed regulators and people who wrote articles about it and nobody replies... it’s quite amazing how nobody can answer that question... i guess I’ll have to wait and see
There is no income tax on gambling winnings in Canada. The only gambling income for the state comes from control of all live gambling and lotteries. Native Territories and the interwebz are exceptions. Provinces are trying to cash in on the poker boom with inferior casinos and online sites. But on the upside they're regulated as Hell! They're so regulated that the Casino de Montreal used to ban wearing jeans (90's), used to have electronic poker tables only (no dealers - 2007-09, I believe), no free booze (to this day), and no alcoholic drinks at the tables (not sure on this one, 2007 (first year of NLHE at casino) - present(?)). I'll take the World Class (Native run) poker room eight miles from my house.
 
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I wish to speak about Global Poker and my experience with it and the fact that I will never again play on that site. I played in their satellites, which was 55 cents for the $15,000 guaranteed Grizzly game and $1.10 for the $40,000 Grizzly game and I had also signed up for the satellites for the $100,000 Grizzly game. I won both the satellites for the 15 and 40 thousand dollar games and when I went to the schedule to see when they played, they all played on the same day with just an hour apart and an hour of late registration. I am a fairly decent poker player and so, I knew I would still be in the $40,000 game, which started first, when the $15,000 game began and sure enough, I was. Their tables are not separate from the site, like on other sites, where you can cascade or tile the tables, NO!. You must flip and flop between tables and that messes with me and sure enough, I got all messed up and wound up hitting call and raise on the wrong table or game. Anyway, when I expressed this to the Global Staff, all they could tell me was to focus and there was no way for me to unregister either, so I was stuck. Also, they do not take the next BB to even out their tables, they take players randomly and they informed me, when I brought that up to them, that you might be the BB 4 or 5 times in a row, because they randomly pick players to move. Anyway, I am done with that site.

The tables can absolutely be played in separate windows. You just need to find the setting and set it. Probably should have done some digging through the settings prior to multitabling tourneys
 
ZenGreen

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When I watch people streaming those sites, they look horrible. It never seems like an exciting series or anything is happening just the same old boring stuff. Toob ad one of them cant buy Merge software. MAN MERGES SOFTWARE IS TOP NOTCH
 
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The tables can absolutely be played in separate windows. You just need to find the setting and set it. Probably should have done some digging through the settings prior to multitabling tourneys
Yeah, about that. I just now went to the site and changed to pro settings for the tables, and yes, they did both come up independently, but I could not see the cards and nothing was moving right and the second table came of black at first and it was a true mess. Anyhow, the site sucks and I would not put another dime into it or a moment further of my time. Thanks anyway. Any site that moves players randomly, rather than moving the next big blind and telling me that I could possibly be the BB 4 or 5 times in a row, I have a serious problem with.
 
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