- Online Poker Scams
- Top 10 Poker Sites For Us Players
- Online Poker Cheat Software
- Online Poker Scams Websites
- Pokernow Scam
Poker Sites in the United States
Online Poker is Rigged Because There are Too Many Quads / Straight Flushes / Full Houses. Dec 11, 2020 Playtika review rated 1.0/5.0 with 22 Comments: I've been playing poker for all my life and I never seen so many impossible bad beats. I've never seen so many flushes, Playtika - WSOP is scam Dec 11, 2020 @ Pissed Consumer.
Online poker sites and casinos have had their fair share of scandals. That's why it's always smart to make sure your money is going to a respectable and fair site. Luckily, a lot of these scandals helped bring on better regulation and online poker is as safe as it's ever been.
Online poker operated in a grey zone when it became popular in the early 2000s. Things got even greyer after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) passed in 2006. Some sites like Party Poker pulled out of the United States while others like PokerStars and Full Tilt kept operating in the United States. Then came Black Friday. On April 15, 2011, the Department of Justice seized the PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker websites. After that, sites were forced to pay out players but Full Tilt and Absolute Poker had squandered player funds and turned out to be insolvent.
It's been almost a decade since then though. In that time poker legislation in the United States has started to catch up with other countries around the world. In 2012, a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled that poker was a game of skill, not chance, and that opened the doors for states to legalize online poker.
Sites popping up now have to abide by a strict set of rules and regulations and are regulated by third-parties. Legitimate gaming sites also have random number generator software that are consistently tested, inspected and certified.
Encryption technology has also advanced substantially in the past few years. Poker sites use this technology to ensure that all your banking and personal information is secured in a digital fortress.
Is online poker legal in the United States?
Online poker is currently regulated on a state-by-state basis in the United States. The 2012 federal court ruling opened the door for legal online poker and, not surprisingly, Nevada was the first state to walk through it.
In 2013, Ultimate Poker became the first site to deal a hand of legal online poker in Nevada. Delaware joined the poker party later that year and then New Jersey became the third –and most populous– state to offer online poker a month later. Since then, Pennsylvania and West Virginia have legalized online poker, but only Pennsylvania has started offering games so far.
Lector de archivos pdf para windows 7. PokerStars launched in Pennsylvania in late 2019 while online poker in West Virginia is expected to go live sometime in 2022.
What if I'm not in one of those states?
Free games online casino slot machine. The good news is that there are plenty of sites looking to legalize online poker too. New York, California, Iowa and others are taking steps towards legalization. But if you're in those states or any others across the United States, you can still fire up a game of poker.
We've also taken the time to review some of the best online poker sites that offer games to players across the United States. Check out our top picks below:
Best Online Poker Sites 2021
Why Ignition Poker?
You might've noticed that Ignition Poker tops our list of best sites for U.S. players. If you're curious about how it earned that spot, we're here to help. Ignition poker launched in the spring of 2016 and just a few months later, the site bought Bovada Poker's player pool, making it the second-largest online gaming site that accepted U.S. players. One of the key elements of any poker site is the size of its player pool. This affects everything from the types of games offered, the stakes, wait times and tournament prize pools.
Ignition Poker is also a sleek-looking site with an intuitive interface that doesn't get in the way. It easily lets you do what you're there to do: play poker. The site is also linked to an online casino, so you get lots of recreational players in cash games and tournaments. The platform is also Bovada's proprietary software, so it's a true tried and tested technology fueling the fire behind Ignition Poker.
There are plenty of other neat features that also sets Ignition Poker apart from the competition.
Ignition Poker highlights
- Quick Seat: Choose a poker game like Texas Hold'em, Omaha, or Omaha Hi/Lo along with the stakes and Quick Seat automatically seats you at a table.
- Anonymous Tables: There are no Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) allowed, so other players can track your hand history. You have to get reads on your opponents the old-fashioned way.
- Zone Poker: A fast-fold feature where you're assigned to a new table once you fold a hand. This speeds up your hands per hour significantly and could improve your profitability.
- In-Software Casino Games: If you prefer to sit through hands, you can play In-Software Casino Games like blackjack, roulette, video poker, or 3D slots.
- Mobile Poker: Play poker anytime, anywhere with the mobile poker apps for Android and iOS. Jackpot Sit-and-Go games cater to mobile poker players with winnings of up to 1000x while you're on the go.
- Softer Opponents: Ignition Poker has a huge community of recreational players. If you study up on your game, then softer opponents means more pots and money for you.
What to look for in a poker site
If you come across another site that isn't on our list, we've come up with a few things you should look for when you want to see if a poker site is legitimate and safe. Check to see if the site checks off all the things below. That's a good indicator the site is good to play at. If a site doesn't offer one or more of these things, you should pump on the brakes and find a site that does.
- Player Traffic: Player traffic isn't just a good for game selection, it's a good indicator that a site has been around long enough and been secure enough to gather a large player pool.
- Good Software: Top software means a site has dedicated time and resources to provide top-notch software. Less reputable sites don't tend to invest as much in this. Quality software also means fewer glitches or issues that could end up costing you money.
- Experience: Do some research and see how long the poker site, or its parent company has been in business. If the site has been around for a while and has licenses or is regulated in a jurisdiction, it's a good sign it's reputable.
- Banking Options: It often comes down to sensible payment options, including credit cards, web wallets, and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
- Security and openness: These things may seem incompatible, but good sites offer both. A quality gaming site locks the doors when it needs too, and lets people in where transparency is needed. Ideally, a site will offer encryption that protects your personal and banking information. At the same time, you want a site that lets independent third-parties audit its software to make sure the games are fair.
Are Sites Rigged? Is my Money Safe?
While there are many claims online that certain sites are rigged, there has been no math to back it up. Most sites use elaborate random number generators and algorithms that help increase entropy to ensure that every hand is truly random. Sites let independent third-party companies check out this software to test their fairness. On top of that, if a site is regulated in any jurisdiction, they have to meet stringent standards that include independent audits. This ensures that games are safe and not rigged.
If you don't trust these commissions, then you can always trust the poker community to root out any rigged games. For instance, poker players on TwoPlusTwo conducted a thorough investigation and uncovered a cheating scandal on Ultimate Bet after players started posting about suspicious players.
Sites also have a myriad of security and banking options to help guarantee that your money is safe at all times. In addition, third-party payment processors can also handle your banking information on several sites so you never have to directly input your information on the sites. On top of that, encryption technology is getting better every day and sites are using it to lock your information behind several layers of high-tech security.
Can I Play for Free?
Yes! Most of the sites we've mentioned offer play money options, that means you can start playing for free. This is a great way for you to try out sites, in addition to getting a feel for the software or just brush up on your poker skills before you take a dive into real money poker.
Online Poker Scams
Lots of these sites also offer freerolls that can ignite your real money poker adventure for free. However, if you want to learn a bit more while you're not on the table, there's been plenty of free poker content sprouting up too. You can watch hours of streamed poker games on Twitch and YouTube. Some players are really helpful in explaining and breaking down their play for new players. Online forums like TwoPlusTwo also offer a giant well of information that'll help any poker player kickstart their career. In addition, you can also post your hands and other players will comment with hints, tips and sometimes a few needles.
To keep up on the latest advice and trends in poker, then keep reading USPokerSites. We're constantly assessing the landscape and giving readers the best, up-to-date information available.
It would be unfair to say scamming, or other forms of cheating are commonplace in online poker markets. But it would also be untrue to say they are rare. As we continue on this topic you might also want to take a look at my write-up about the safety of online poker as well. As poker looks for its rebound, collusion will always be the biggest problem but in some cases you can take action. See below for more on collusion.
Online poker and other forms of online gambling in the United States and across the world are still rather young, especially compared to older forms of gambling. The history of Internet poker started back in 1998 with Planet Poker. Planet Poker was the first real-money cardroom[A] and took their first clients on Jan 1st, 1998, dealing a game of $3–$6 limit Texas Hold'em to a few select customers. The site continued growing from there.
The industry truly took off during the period of 2003 to 2006, which is known as the 'Poker Boom'[B]. In these years, the number of online poker players grew exponentially, repeatedly doubling, year after year. However, due to the passage of the UIGEA[C] later that year and the US government's crackdown on Internet gambling, the industry's growth has been stifled.
While the brick-and-mortar casino industry has been around for at least 50 years in the United States and even longer in other countries, online poker still remains in its discovery phase.
Even in the now-regulated online poker markets of New Jersey, Delaware, and Nevada, there have been lots of hiccups for both regulators and players. The offshore world is ahead of them in many aspects, but not in terms of regulatory oversight.
What is Collusion and Does it Happen
This is the most common form of cheating by players. Since using sleight of hand, bottom dealing, stacking the deck or marking cards isn't possible in online poker – wannabe cheaters must resort to colluding.
Top 10 Poker Sites For Us Players
In online poker, collusion is when two or more players are working together with a clandestine but common strategy. This can be as simple as two players soft-playing each other, which if they're playing heads-up, has little effect on others players. It is essentially two friends 'checking down' a pot in a live game. This form of collusion is generally harmless.
Online Poker Cheat Software
However, more advanced forms of players can cost unsuspecting players a lot of money. Professional-level cheats, even in online poker markets, have taken unsuspecting players for tens of thousands of dollars.
Their tactics can go from trapping players with raises and re-raises, which forces them to fold or rethink their hand, to losing to each other so as to not arise suspicion. Heck, players can even talk to each other through an instant messaging service, like Facebook Chat or Skype. Bovada created an ‘anonymous' pattern and while I believe they are the best site for safety concerns, it won't stop collusion. A lot of the inside knowledge is shared at poker training sites that are legit (our top list).
They can also disguise themselves by using different IP address or creating multiple accounts and playing under different aliases, which is known as 'multi-accounting'. This allows players to play multiple hands and go undetected.
Do You Suspect Collusion?
Collusion at online poker websites isn't exactly commonplace, but the threat of being colluded against, especially in middle- to high-stakes games, is very real. How sites and networks handle collusion or how proactive they are at spotting it varies wildly, depending on the poker room.
Ideally, each room would have a security team that is heavily dedicated to stopping collusion on all fronts. Players who engage in collusion at the higher levels can be extremely sophisticated and organized. For this reason, it's vital for operators to be vigilant against collusion and thoroughly investigate claims made by players.
If you're playing and suspect collusion, immediately email or call support. Email any available hand histories where you suspect collusion is taking place as well. It should also go without saying that you should stop playing against those opponents. There's no need to berate the suspects in the chat – just report the incident to support.
It may be worth posting on a public forum to warn others of the suspected collusion and to publicly post the correspondence with the poker room's management and security. Additionally, posting hand histories so that others can review them is another common option.
However, you should remember that many players are quick to blame their losses on collusion when they're getting beat by a particular opponent(s). In the vast majority of cases, collusion isn't the reason why you're losing. In most cases, you're likely losing to said players because they're simply better than you. Nonetheless, if you detect strange patterns in play against certain opponents, there may be a reason for concern, and you should report it.
What Are Regulated vs. Unregulated Poker Sites
Once you report suspected collusion to poker room management, it's up to them to decide how far to go with their investigation. As described above, it would be great if each room vigorously investigated incidents of collusion, but that is just not the case.
In regulated and legal markets, like those in most of Western Europe and now in the states of New Jersey, Delaware, and Nevada, these claims are almost always taken seriously. There are stringent gaming commission requirements in these jurisdictions, and the poker sites have to answer to regulators.
Nevada and New Jersey have stiff penalties for collusion[D], which is, of course, a form of cheating. Nevada has taken all of their brick-and-mortar gaming laws and applied them online, which means players caught cheating could face a category B felony in the state for their first offense. This could amount to 1–6 years in prison (and/or $10,000 in fines) and additional restitution to the casino.
In regulated markets, instances of collusion will almost always be dealt with appropriately. Once management has completed their investigation, those who are guilty of collusion will usually be barred from the site permanently, and their funds will be confiscated and distributed to player(s) who were victims of their scam.
In theory, this is how it should also work in unregulated markets. However, while some sites will do their due diligence when it comes to investing claims of collusion, many unregulated rooms don't take the matter too seriously. Or they pretend that they do, only paying lip service to players but in reality doing little to stop collusion or investigate claims of cheating.
Though most of these sites are licensed in their home countries, many of these seals or regulatory bodies are mere formalities. While they occasionally revoke the licenses of serial offenders, for the most part, they have little or no knowledge of a site's finances or day-to-day operations.
Collusion is much more likely to occur in offshore markets, for this reason. The oversight just isn't there, and many sites don't investigate claims adequately.
For instance, still one of the largest US-facing sites, Merge Gaming (Carbon Poker) had a cheating scam back in 2012. The evidence was undeniable. There was chip dumping and collusion going on, but Merge investigated the matter in only 12 hours and determined there was no wrongdoing.
After revisiting the matter and the 2+2 Forum providing more proof, Merge reopened their investigation. The room never made an official announcement, but the cheating stopped, and the accounts in question were never seen again. It's unclear whether Merge banned the accounts and confiscated the funds or whether the cheaters simply stopped when discovered. The victims of the cheaters never did receive compensation for being cheated, which would be the only fair outcome if Merge indeed banned the players and seized their funds. Judging by their investigation into the matter, it's tough to have much confidence in their security team when it comes to stopping collusion and investigating issues that players bring to their attention.
Other US-facing unregulated and offshore sites have faced similar allegations of collusion. This isn't to say there's collusion going on unchecked at all unregulated sites. Some are better than others. Overall though, sites in regulated poker markets do a much better job catching collision and other forms of cheating.
Checks Bouncing or Nothing Coming from Poker Websites
Not being paid when you request a withdrawal from an online gambling site is a situation many players have experienced. Magic forest slots. Like our example of collusion, there is a stark difference between regulated and unregulated markets.
Antivirus apple free download. Rizk casino bonus. For instance, during the 'Black Friday' debacle in 2011, Full Tilt Poker went insolvent after the US Department of Justice's seizures and indictments. PokerStars came to an agreement with the DOJ[E] to bail out Full Tilt Poker's players and payout balances over a year later, but US customers still had to wait over 2.5 years to have their funds returned to them.
And they were lucky. Absolute Poker and UltimateBet (Cereus Poker Network) players are currently out hundreds of millions after Black Friday, and there's almost no hope of being repaid.
Of course, the vast majority of players who play at unregulated or offshore online poker rooms don't end up in this situation. But the cold reality is that there is little players can do in a dispute with an unregulated poker operator. Other than shaming them on poker forums and emailing and calling their support staff relentlessly to get paid – players are mostly helpless. There have been forum posts for years about suing sites that wronged players and run off with bankrolls or went insolvent, but I've yet to hear of one of these lawsuits proceeding, let alone succeeding.
Online Poker Scams Websites
Even in regulated climates, it can take a long time to get restitution from a site that goes bust or runs off with player funds, but at least players have legal protections and a court system to work within.
If you're playing in a state that has online gambling regulated on the intrastate level, (Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey), you can be absolutely sure that you will be paid. From a legal perspective, state-regulated online poker in the United States is no different than playing at a traditional brick-and-mortar casino.
Pokernow Scam
If a site fails to pay players or doesn't meet the specific regulatory standards mandated by government – they will lose their license.
In Conclusion
Getting scammed or cheated in online poker isn't commonplace. Even in unregulated offshore markets, the vast majority of players are not being taken advantage of and are paid within the appropriate time-frame when they request a withdrawal.
In regulated markets, the security in terms of collusion and the allotment of player funds is much better. Currently, that can only be done in the three states listed above. Legislation has been introduced in dozens of other states, and these numbers are expected to grow as the years go by.
For now, playing at unlicensed sites is the only option for most Americans, and it's still a viable one. The best way to not get scammed or ripped off is to keep up with recent news and be aware of your opponents' and their play patterns.
Author:Joseph Falchetti (twitter)
(C) Copyright PokerWebsites.com, 2018
References and Citations
