Real money online poker is legal in six states in the US right now: New Jersey, Nevada, Michigan, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Gaming regulators in each state are responsible for overseeing the industry, issuing regulations, enforcing the law, and granting licenses to potential operators.
Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Delaware are each home to at least one currently active poker site open to anyone located within the state at the time of access. West Virginia has fully passed legislation to legalize online poker, but regulators there are still drawing up regulations and preparing operators to go live.
Legal US Poker Sites
BettingUSA.com reviews legal US poker sites, evaluates promotions and bonus offers, and cover the latest industry news and legal updates.
US Online Poker Reviews
BettingUSA.com reviews all legal US poker sites below.
- BetMGM Poker Review
- WSOP Poker Review
- Borgata Poker Review
- Party Poker Review
- PokerStars Review
- 888 Poker Review
Online Poker Bonuses
BettingUSA.com lists high-value poker deposit bonuses, signup offers, and promo codes that are currently available at US poker sites. See the featured operators listed and reviewed on this page for current promo codes and offers.
Note: BettingUSA focuses strictly on poker bonuses that are offered by legal and licensed operators in the USA.
States With Legal Online Poker
Map Key
- Blue = Online poker is legal and operational
- Red = Online poker is legal but not yet live

Poker
In none of these states do you need to be a resident to play online for real money; you simply need to be physically located within the borders of the state and be at least 21 years of age.
If you read elsewhere that online poker is available in other states, you should know that you’re not getting the full story. A number of illegal offshore poker sites target customers in other states, but cannot be trusted.
The remainder of this page will provide you with a summary of legal online poker sites and mobile poker apps in regulated states as well as some helpful information.
Multi-State Poker Agreements for Increased Liquidity
Players hoping for a return to the glory years of online poker have been disappointed by the slow rollout of online poker one state at a time. Absent federal legislation legalizing poker across the country in one fell swoop, individual states have taken it upon themselves to pass laws legalizing poker within state lines only.
The biggest challenge facing the industry today is overcoming the quintessential catch-22 of poker: traffic and liquidity.
Busy poker sites attract new players. Slow poker sites do not. Bridging that divide is made particularly challenging by the Federal Wire Act, which prohibits poker sites from accepting customers across state lines and limits every poker site’s potential player pool to a single state.
Interstate compacts are slowly overcoming the challenge of limited player pools by allowing poker sites in regulated states to share liquidity. For example, Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey signed a player sharing agreement in 2017 that permits operators to site players from different states at the same tables.
As additional states sign similar player sharing agreements, the potential pool of players will expand significantly and increase liquidity for operators across the board.
How Online Poker Became Legal in the USA
To understand how online poker was legalized in the US, we must first look at how it was criminalized.