Either way, some unregulated sites feel these states are too risky to open up to, or don't want to step on anyone's toes. several state licensed casinos in Maryland). Washington), or because there's some significant gambling organization already operating in the state (e.g. This is usually because these states either have strong laws against playing poker online (e.g. They do not have regulated online poker rooms yet, but for certain reasons some unregulated sites have chosen not to accept players from these states either. Unfortunately the biggest US-friendly online poker rooms tend to avoid accepting players from states with active regulated poker rooms. Ideally it would be good if the whole of the US could pool together at some point, but as it stands the small number of individually regulated states means that you end up playing against a much smaller pool of players than you would otherwise be able to. Pennsylvania (since 2017): PokerStars PA.New Jersey (since 2013): WSOP/888, PokerStars NJ, Party/Borgata/BetMGM.For example, these are your options in each of the regulated states: As a result you can only play at the regulated sites (usually), and so you have a much more limited choice in where you can play poker online. Regulation sounds like a good thing, but really the primary goal for these states is to be able to profit more directly from the running of online poker.

They have regulated online poker, which means they offer poker rooms that only accept players from within the same (or sometimes other regulated) states, and therefore have much lower player traffic. I do not believe regulated sites offer anything better in terms of safety.

I believe they are the best options for playing poker online if you can get to them. Note: All of the US-friendly poker rooms I recommend on this site fall in to the unregulated category. The biggest rooms in operation are currently: Basically, if you live in one of the green states, you are in the best position for playing online poker because you have access to the busiest online poker rooms available. Unregulated sounds like a negative word, but in this context these rooms have the freedom to accept players from multiple states, and so therefore have much bigger player pools. From here you are free to play at 'unregulated' rooms, which are currently the biggest and most popular destinations for playing poker online.

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