State-regulated online poker and live poker in America are constantly in flux. With the lack of federal legislation around the game, the United States is anything but united on the issue.
Each of the 50 states can legalize, regulate, and license live poker rooms or online poker sites as they choose.
Live poker legislation
More than half of the states allow live poker, whether in card rooms, casinos, or on Indigenous lands. However, there are some states, like Texas and Georgia, with such ambiguous laws that poker enthusiasts have found ways to open membership-based card clubs without explicit licenses to do so.
See our guide to live poker rooms for more.
Online poker legislation
Online poker is much less widely available than live poker. Only a few states have specifically legalized state-licensed internet poker: Nevada, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Connecticut, Rhode Island and West Virginia.
Two of those states (Connecticut and Rhode Island) have yet to license any operators for poker.
Some of those states have signed the Multi-State Internet Gaming Agreement (MSIGA). This allows poker sites open in more than one state to link their sites and player pools across state lines. It offers benefits to players in that it creates larger fields of players and subsequently increased prize pools.
Nevada, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Michigan have multi-state agreements in place.
Upcoming poker legislation
Most bills to legalize poker — either live or online — appear at the beginning of each year. Lawmakers put their bills up for consideration, and committees then decide whether to allow those proposals to move forward.
Typically, bills meet their fate by the end of spring. After that, poker players must wait another year to see if anything will change.
In many US states it is possible to play on sites such as ClubWPT Gold, which is not regulated in the same way as fully licensed operators, having adapted from the old 'sweepstakes' model.
As such it operates in something of a 'gray' market - not technically licensed but not explicitly banned. States where ClubWPT Gold is unavailable include Washington, New Jersey, Louisiana, Connecticut, Michigan, Montana and Tennessee.
The map above provides the most up-to-date information.
