The answer to the question “is online poker legal” depends primarily upon where you live and how the law is interpreted in your country. In the UK and parts of Europe, online poker has been completely legalized and regulated just like any other industry. If you live in the United States, there is no clear answer to the question.

Before we go any further, I’d like to let you know up front that I am not a lawyer and what I say does not constitute legal advice. If you want to play online poker, it is up to you to do your own homework. Laws change from one country and one jurisdiction to the next, and there’s no way for me to provide a simple answer for every person in the world.

Legality of Online Poker in the United States

Since most visitors to this site come from the United States, we’ll start with the legality of online poker in the US. Online poker itself has not been officially outlawed by any federal law. To date, no citizen of the United States of America has been charged with any crime for simply playing online poker.

If you want to simply play online poker, you’ll be fine. The United States is already the single greatest source of revenue for the online poker industry. Countless US citizens play online poker for real money and never have a problem. I’ve been playing for years and so have many of my friends, and none of us have ever had a problem or even heard of anyone having a problem.

Where you could get into trouble is if you wanted to start your own online poker room. That is expressly forbidden in the United States and you would get into a heap of trouble if you were caught operating your own card room on the internet. That’s why all online poker sites are located in offshore locations.

Some poker sites do not accept players from the United States because they don’t want to have to deal with the legal hassle. These poker sites are often regulated in the UK and they would like to one day enter the US poker market after legalization. By not accepting US players today, they hope to stay on the good side of the US government.

Other online poker sites welcome players from the United States because they feel like it’s not their business to enforce the laws of every country in the world. They simple set up the poker tables and let customers come to them. These poker sites operate openly and legally where they originate and US laws do not apply to them.

Legality of Online Poker in the UK

Online poker is 100% legal and regulated in the United Kingdom. If you are a citizen in the UK, you have nothing to worry about. In fact, online poker winnings are considered tax free in the UK! This is a poker player’s dream location. Those of us in the United States would love to see the same thing happen here.

Poker site operators have to go through an extensive licensing process, but that’s not a problem for people who have the means to even consider opening a poker site in the first place. For the individual poker player, though, all you need is a computer and a little money to play with.

Legality of Online Poker in Other Countries

The laws regarding online poker vary widely from one country to the next. Some countries have attempted to completely outlaw poker, while others have taken steps to make online poker a legal and regulated industry. If you live somewhere outside the US or UK, you will need to do your own research on online poker laws.

Many countries don’t even address the issue at all. Small, third world countries have enough problems to deal with that online poker is completely ignored. If you can get a stable internet connection in one of those countries, you’ll probably be fine. Then again, you’ll want to double check before you dive right in – especially in the Middle East.

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