Online Poker California Laws. Outside of the states where online poker is fully regulated, the law in regards to Californian online poker sites and gambling, in general, is among the most liberal in the US.This then is only good news for gamblers of other states as California is only a few steps behind being fully legalized.

1. Mar 30, 2021 Rest assured that it is safe and legal to gamble online in California. While the state legislature has dithered on passing internet poker laws for the past decade, California officials do not prosecute individuals if they play online for real money. It’s illegal to start your own online gambling business.
2. Fortunately, however, California online poker is not illegal. Neither Federal law nor California state law prohibit citizens from partaking in real money online poker games. You may have heard of UIGEA or Black Friday, but those events do not make your favorite pastime a crime.
3. Jan 21, 2021 Online Poker California – Best Legal CA Real Money Poker Sites in 2021 by Adrian.

Online Poker has become extremely popular around the world in recent years. In fact, it is now the preferred medium of playing poker for many amateurs and professionals alike. Contrary to popular belief, It is actually California which is considered the center of the poker universe and not Nevada. The reason that California has gained this reputation is due the fact that several high stakes games and tournaments are frequently hosted within the state throughout the year.

However, there seems to be a lot of confusion amongst online poker players and online gamblers in general about the legal status of online gambling in the Golden state.

In this article, we will take a deeper dive into the murky waters that is – the legislation that governs online casinos in California, and shed some much-needed light on it.

Top Californian Poker Rooms for May 2021All Poker Rooms are Licensed , Mobile Friendly Advertiser Disclosure

Contents

• Legislation governing online poker in California
• Essentials of playing online poker in California

Most recent gambling news from the state of California

More often than not, the state of California makes it into gambling headlines as a result of some form of delay or disagreement with regards to the state attempting to regulate online poker and other forms of online gambling. It has been a decade and the state has remained highly indecisive about whether they are pro and anti and it seems like they just keep turning the tables back and forth periodically. Even though some progress has been made in recent years to thwart away opposition of horse racing, there is still a certain piece of legislation called the bad actor clause which is still in place and does not seem to budge or compromise even a bit.

In February 2018, Assemblyman Reggie Jones Sawyer proposed a bill in favor of online gambling, but faced such fierce opposition from proponents of the bad actor clause that the bill went down in flames, figuratively, just a few months after it was proposed.

Legislation governing online poker in California

The path to legalization of online gambling and online poker in California has been a long, winding one with a lot of pitfalls. As per Assemblyman Mike Gatto, Californian legislators come up with an average of 2 – 6 gambling bills almost every year since 2008 and not a single one of them has come anywhere close to being passed or enforced.

Eventually, after a final push in 2016 for the long pending legalization of online gambling in California, the matter has now been left hanging in limbo. Yes, it is basically on an indefinite hold at this point in time. In fact, the journey has been so upsetting and the source of such strong frustration that several lawmakers and supporters of legalization have hung up their gloves and called it quits.

Bad Actors – what are they?

As per the law books, a “bad actor” is an online gambling establishment such as an online casino or poker room which continues or continued to accept real money bets from American players even after the passing of the UIGEA was enforced officially as of the last day of the year 2016. UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) basically outlaws American residents from playing real money gambling on the internet.

A quintessential example of a bad actor is PokerStars, a popular online poker room where even coveted professionals hold accounts and play frequently. Despite the passing of the UIGEA, PokerStars continued to accept American players into their online poker rooms and tournaments. They only stopped when the US Department of Justice seized the domain and charges were pressed against as many as 13 people from the company on the very same day. The same also happened with Full Tilt Poker and several other online poker rooms.

PokerStars settled the case by paying a staggering fine of over $700 million. PokerStars was then taken over by Rational Group for just under 5 billion US dollars and Rational Group tried every trick in the book to push for the legalization of this website throughout America. However, PokerStars remained blacklisted in the following states due to the bad actors clause in the state legislation of these states – Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware.

Essentials of playing online poker in California

If there is one thing you need to know about poker and online poker specifically in California, it is that it is highly popular throughout the state. This may be attributed to the many Californian players that are ranked highly in the world stage of poker, it can also be attributed to the fact that there is year-round poker action in the state’s card rooms, etc. Whatever the reason for the widespread popularity, California beats other states in terms of number of online poker players by a long mile.

Are Californians able to sign up at online poker sites?

In States like New York and Maryland, Poker players are being declined when they attempt to sign up and register accounts with online poker sites. However, thankfully, this is not the case with California. All the top, legal websites that have been ranked and reviewed on our websites recognize and accept players from California.

Therefore, signing up and playing online poker from California is absolutely fine. You just register an account, provide your details and you can get started playing in a matter of minutes.

Is online poker legal or not in California?

Provided that we are not legal counsellors, this is a question that we are technically not qualified to answer. Having said that, we have been in the industry for decades and so we can give you an insight into the current pragmatic status of online poker in California. Be it legal or not, it is certainly a gray area. However, what you should know and what will put things in perspective is that if you do choose to play online poker as a Californian resident, you are certainly not going to get into any legal trouble. Even if it is outlawed, it is just something that cannot be enforced and never has any criminal charge been pressed or action been taken against an individual player for online poker in the state of California.

Will California regulate online poker?

The fact is that the demand for online poker is humongous in California. Even though the legislation and the bad actor clause is providing some resistance, people are already playing online poker in California, in fact, hundreds of thousands of Californians play online poker. Slots of vegas free chip 2020.

Therefore, it is virtually impossible for the state to penalize them all. Eventually, the state is going to have to recognize the demand and realize that their prohibition is not going to work. The only thing that will work is to legalize online poker fully, regulate it, make is safe and fair for all Californians and even maybe generate some revenue by taxing the industry. Therefore, it is not a matter of whether California will regulate online poker, but a question of when California will regulate online poker.

You’ll find no shortage of live poker cash games and tournaments in California. But these games are expensive between their multi-hundred dollar buy-ins and their flat-fee rake structure.

Why not make the switch to online poker? The buy-ins and rake are reasonable. There are more games and variants to choose from. And you can claim a deposit bonus, which no live cardroom offers.

All you need is an account with one of the best California poker sites online.

We strongly recommend you join one of the real money poker sites we endorse. We explain why, what we look for, and more in the next section.

Then, we’ll show you why you should consider switching to playing online poker in CA, including how it can save and make you more money compared to playing live.

If that sounds good to you, then let’s get started.

If you want to play real money poker online in California, your first step is to find a safe and reputable poker site to join. This isn’t a step you want to take alone. Here is why.

Poker is unique from most other gambling games in that you’re not playing against the house but other players like yourself. The site you join needs to have adequate traffic, otherwise, you won’t find a game to play.

This information is available online if you know where to look. And when it’s not, there are usually a few tells you can pick up in the online poker room’s lobby.

If you don’t know how to find this information, or how to interpret the clues, you might as well choose a poker site blindfolded. There’s really no difference if you insist on finding your own CA poker site to join.

On top of that, there’s other criteria you should consider, such as the poker room’s games, variants, stakes, rake, promotions, and more. It’s a lot to uncover.

That’s why we suggest you rely on us. We have decades of online poker experience. And we’ve researched and tested almost every online poker site in existence, so we know exactly which ones Californians should join.

Here’s what we look for in the best online poker sites for California.

• The poker site’s license and the commission that issued it
• The banking options you can use
• The withdrawal limits i.e. how much of your winnings can you withdraw each month?
• Can you claim a deposit bonus or participate in a VIP program, guaranteed tournaments, etc.?
• Are they trustworthy? What do other poker players think of them?

This covers the basics and tells us whether the poker room is safe, secure, trustworthy, and reliable enough to join.

But we’re not done yet.

We also need to make sure they’re a GREAT poker site, especially for poker players in California. Here’s what else we look at.

• What features does the room have? Do they have hand history players, four-color decks, odds calculators, quick play, etc.?
• Can you use a HUD?
• What kinds of tournaments can you play? Can you play guaranteed tournament? Satellites? Knockouts? Turbos? 6-max?
• What real money poker games and variants can you play?
• Do they allow multi-tabling? How many tables can you play at once?
• Is their rake reasonable?

We compare every site we review, take the top choices, and order them from best to worst. The result is a list of the top poker sites or, in this case, the best California poker sites.

We’re thorough in our research and testing, as you can see for yourself if you read our poker room reviews.

The goal is to save you all that time, money, and energy, then help you find a California-friendly online poker room as quickly as possible.

We think we achieved that. But you’ll only know for sure once you choose a CA poker site to join, create your account, and get some real money hands and tourneys under your belt.

Rake at California Poker Sites

One unique thing about playing live poker in California is how you pay rake. The rake is the money the poker room collects as their fee for hosting the game.

Most poker rooms charge you a percentage of the pot and cap how much they can rake. For example, a poker room might take 10% of every pot up to $10.

Many cardrooms do not rake the pot if no one sees a flop. This is known as a “no flop, no drop” policy.

California flips all this on its head. Here’s how.

By law, California cardrooms cannot rake a percentage of the pot, so they charge a flat rate and/or charge an hourly fee instead.

For example, you might pay $10 every hour to play. Or you might as much as $7 (at $5/$10) plus whatever the room takes for their promotions, such as a bad beat jackpot. They also rake the pot even if no one sees a flop.

Now, let’s compare this to online poker.

One of the California online poker sites we like charges 5.5% rake for their highest limit games and even less for their micro stakes.

If you play $5/$10, like our live example above, you’ll pay $0.01 for every $0.18 in the pot (5.5%). You’ll pay $1 to $5 max per hand depending on the number of players in the pot. That’s 70% less on the high side, just for playing online.

That’s not all the money you’ll save either. Here are the other ways you’ll save by choosing to play real money poker online instead of live.

• Not having to travel
• Not wasting time waiting for a game or seat to open
• Not playing at rooms without a no flop, no drop policy
• Choosing whether to play bad beat jackpot games

You’ll save money, but you can also make more money playing poker online because you can play more than one table at a time and you can participate in promotions like deposit bonuses and VIP programs.

The bottom line, you’ll increase your hourly rate and take-home pay. And all you have to do is choose to play games at the top CA poker websites instead of live.

This doesn’t just apply to cash games either. It applies to tournaments, too.

California is also known for their poker tournaments. They host some of the largest and most popular poker tournaments in the world.

• WSOP circuit events
• WTP tournaments such as the WPT Deep Stacks Championship
• Battle of the Bay
• California State Poker Championship
• Memorial Day Tournament Series
• Bay 101 Summer Open
• Commerce Hold’em Series
• A. Poker Open
• Gold Rush Poker Series

These are great live tournaments to play in. They can add a nice boost to your total live earnings column, especially since they routinely pay six and seven-figure prizes to the winner.

Jackpot strike casino. There’s also a little prestige and notoriety in doing well in these tournaments, which some poker players care about.

But do they offset the downsides?

• Buy-ins range from several hundred to several thousand dollars.
• The rake is expensive. You should expect the cardroom to collect $15 to $20 for every $100 you pay to play.
• The bigger tournaments can take days to complete.

Now, these will apply to live tournaments. But you also have the fact that you can spend hours playing, bust the tournament, and walk away with nothing.

This will apply to online tournaments too, but they have advantages that California poker tournament players do not have.

If you want to play real money poker tournaments in California, we recommend you play online. Here are a few reasons why, relative to the points made in the last section.

• The largest tournament buy-ins online are between $215 to $600 (with a few rare exceptions).
• The prize pools still reach six and seven figures because online poker sites aren’t confined to California or a specific square footage. They can allow a larger number of players to play, which increases the prize pool without increasing the buy-in.
• You pay less rake. You’ll usually pay $9 to $10 for every $100 you pay to play.
• Most tournaments are done in a (long) day.

Now, we mentioned that you can play a tournament for hours only to bust and walk away with nothing. That’s possible in any tournament, online or live. But here’s why online poker tournaments are better.

Online poker rooms can run more tournaments since they’re not limited on space. This means you can play more tournaments. And most CA poker sites let you play more than one tournament at a time.

Since you can put in more volume (play more tournaments), you can get through your variance (losses) faster. This enables you to cash out and win more often. You don’t have to go weeks, months, or years without a score. You’ll cash out far more often than that.

There are many other benefits to playing poker tournaments online instead of live, too.

• You can earn VIP perks.
• You’ll have a larger variety of tournament games, variations, and stakes to choose from.
• You can satellite into larger poker tournaments for much less than you can online.
• You can buy into many tournaments for less than $20. Many of these have three- or four-figure prize pools/payouts.

While there’s more money, prestige, and notoriety to gain playing in California’s live poker tournaments, it also costs a lot of time and money to play these tourneys.

Online poker tournaments are a middle ground. You can still play in tournaments with large prize pools. But you won’t spend as much to play them. And you have the added benefit of multi-tabling, which will enable you to play, cash in, and win more tournaments than you ever could offline.

Yes. We highly recommend it. The traffic at each poker site fluctuates, both in terms of overall traffic and traffic to the specific game you want to play.

You’ll have better odds of finding a profitable game or tournament the more poker site accounts you have.

The most common is the deposit bonus. Make a deposit and the poker room will match a percentage of it up to so many dollars.

For example, if the poker room you join is offering a 100% match bonus up to $500, then they’ll give you $1 for every $1 you deposit. You can get as much as $500 free.

Poker rooms also offer VIP programs, rebates, tournament tickets, guaranteed tournaments, VIP exclusive freerolls, and more.

American Poker Sites Real Money

It depends on the poker room.

A typical guaranteed tourney during a Sunday schedule is $100,000. That said, we’ve seen guarantees as high as $1 million.

You should take a two-pronged approach.

One, figure out what you want in a poker site — the games, variants, stakes, promotions, etc. Then, read the reviews for every site we recommend and choose the site that offers the closest to what you’re looking for.

Yes. Most poker sites offer mobile poker.

Some poker sites offer a native app. Others have a browser-based setup where you’ll play poker in your mobile web browser.

There are tons of variables to consider, too many to cover here. If we had to give a sweeping statement, it’d be the one below.

If you play medium stakes or higher, chances are you’re better off playing live. You can find games like $5/$10 or $10/$20 online, but you’ll probably find more consistent action offline. And depending on where you live in California, it might even make more sense to drive to Reno or Las Vegas.

✅ Is Ignition Casino Legal In California?Yes, Ignition Casino Is Legal In CA. Ignition Casino's Parent Network, Pai Wang Luo, Is A Licensed Business Operator In Hong Kong And Relies On Hon..

For micro and small stakes players, as well as tournament players, we think there’s a lot of value in playing at online poker sites for all the reasons mentioned above.

Poker is popular in CA. You’ll find loads of live cash game action and poker tournaments. Many of these poker tournaments pay life-altering sums to the players who win them.

Usa Poker Online Real Money

But live poker in California is far more expensive, less profitable, and less convenient compared to playing online.

There’s no reason you can’t play both formats, both live and online. But if we had to choose, we’d choose to play real money poker online.

If you see where we’re coming from and want to make the leap to playing poker online, then join one of the best California poker sites and create your account now.

Online Poker Real Money Usa Legal California

Cash games and tournaments are running all day every day. Are you going to be part of the action?