Our USA Federal Government abandoned its poker-loving citizens way back on April 15, 2011 - we call it "Black Friday".
Ever since that day, we've been on our own with no legal protections if anything goes wrong. We have no legal recourse.
Some sites still accept American customers, but it always feels like we're at great risk of being ripped off somehow, at risk of being cheated by the sites themselves.
People usually say "no site would ever do that" but we're ten years removed from Black Friday and with the ability to look back with 20/20 hindsight, we clearly see that sites were being dishonest - some much more than others, but space doesn't allow me to go into details here. The stories are well-known and they're out there if you know how and where to search for them.
For me, I decided to simply play freerolls without depositing a single penny of my own money, generate a small bankroll this way, and then try to run that up as high as possible. For a while it was fun, but over time it doesn't seem quite so much fun anymore. Losing tends to do that - eventually players just fall out of love with the game, and we move on in life to other, much more important things, than playing a silly card game.
When I do get the urge to play poker, I always return to my first love, Poker Stars, who were the only honest site in the Black Friday days. But they are under completely different ownership now, so there's no guarantee they still are... but they do offer a healthy play chip serving of tournaments and cash games, and of course play chips are free if you're willing to grind up from the small starting stack they give you... We Americans are allowed to play on Poker Stars but we have to agree to only use the play chips, we're still not allowed to play for real money (as everyone knows). I would never buy play chips, that seems to defeat the entire purpose (they're worth nothing, you can't ever exchange them for real money)... but some players do spend a lot of money buying play chips on Stars. To each their own, and if it helps the site keep the games running, then good for them. Hope this helps, best wishes!
