US Friendly Poker Rooms

So, where are American players playing online poker now? The biggest rooms that have served the US market since the UIGEA was passed in 2006 are no longer accepting Americans after Black Friday of April 2011. But there are still some good poker sites that will accept American players. It may be a bit tricky making deposits but there are enough options that you should be able to find at least one way.

Bovada Poker is a new poker room which caters to American players only. It is run by the same people that managed the American facing Bodog Poker. Now that Bodog no longer accepts US players, all Americans that did play on Bodog have been moved to Bovada.

America’s Cardroom has taken over Doyles Room and is now actively accepting US players. With Visa available as a deposit method, and a minimum deposit limit of about $50, this should hopefully be another viable option for Americans. This poker room is on the Yatahay poker network, which is still fairly small in player numbers though it has been established for over ten years.

Some rooms on the Merge Gaming Network, such as Carbon Poker and Poker Host, continue to welcome American players. Not all Merge rooms will accepts US players, but Carbon poker is by far the biggest room using this software.

Luvin Poker which is on the Everleaf Gaming Network are actively promoting that they welcome American players in their poker room. They have some deposit methods available for the US, such as Pic Club, wire transfer and some credit cards. However, it seems that most players have a lot of difficulty actually getting their deposits to go through, so this is not really an option at this time.

The Cake Poker network has some rooms that continue to accept US players. Network traffic is still quite low however, so it doesn’t appear that they have had a large influx of new players so far. The poker room at All In Poker on the Cake Network is actively taking new American players at this time. Again, there seems to be a lot of difficulty for Americans to deposit there.

While Bodog Poker continued to accept Americans longer than most other big name rooms, that ended at the end of 2011. From the beginning of 2012, all existing American players playing at Bodog had their accounts moved to the new Bovada Poker Room. Run by the same people that ran Bodog Poker, this new room is currently only accepting American players, which is a nice change.

Poker Stars are now indisputably the largest online poker room – mainly because unlike other large poker rooms, Poker Stars did not abandon their American players in 2006. However, they are currently not accepting new US players or allowing their existing US players to play for real money.

FullTilt Poker has now stopped accepting new US Players and existing players can not play at the real money tables.

UltimateBet Poker have stopped taking new American players but continue to allow their existing US players to play for cash on their site. However, this room and Absolute Poker were the hardest hit by the recent action and it seems likely that they will not be able to continue in operation much longer.

Absolute Poker are no longer accepting new American players. American players with existing accounts are allowed to play for real money at this time. As with UB, it seems unlikely that Absolute Poker will be able to survive this crisis for long.

Second Round of Seizures

The second list of gambling sites to be seized by the US DOJ, in May 2011, included both Doyles Room and True Poker, both of which are on the little known Yatahay Poker Network.

Both those rooms responded by moving their operation to new domains and continued to accept American players. However, that network seems to have some issues with the software and consequently we cannot recommend either room to any players at this time.