Recommended Sites For Players in United States

Choosing Your Best Online Poker Sites

Where Should You Play Online?

Deciding where to play online poker is as simple as figuring out what you want from playing the game. For example, if you’re a US-based player who enjoys sites with lots of players and action, then Carbon Poker, flagship site of the Merge Network, is a solid choice. Merge and Carbon head up the largest US-facing network, with Bovada not far behind.

If you’re an international (meaning outside the US) player, your options are even better. 888 is, for example, a great choice, being among the largest worldwide sites while offering fishy games, fast payouts, strong support and great software. BPR also knows that where you live can be as important as the types of games you like. That’s why we provide country-by-country recommendations, to help you choose wisely.

Looking for Fast Payouts?

Getting a playing bankroll onto and off of online sites is something all players must consider (except play money players), yet it’s often overlooked. Everyone wants to play immediately, and it’s not until hitting that big score in a multi-table tournament that panic starts to set in. Is this operator legitimate? Will they pay me?

The problem can be compounded for US players, not because playing online poker is illegal – it isn't – but because of overreaching banking regulations that prevent most US banks from processing electronic transactions connected to various forms of gambling. If you live outside the US, then be assured that all sites showcased at BestPokerRooms.com are reputable and offer fast payouts and multiple deposit methods, often using online “e-wallets”.

In the US, however these e-wallets are not available, and even with reputable sites, deposits from and payouts to US players can be slow, often taking several weeks. It is an unfortunate but necessary part of playing the game. We monitor all our sites’ processing and turnaround times and incorporate that information into our recommendations as well. For our US players, we also recommend dedication and proper bankroll management, keeping too much of your playing money from being tied up in processing channels at any given time.

Folk from the US should be encouraged that there are many great reasons to play at Bovada and Carbon; nonetheless, payouts range from three weeks to two months, since at these two sites paper cheques are often issued, drawn in international banks using US dollars. However, if you’re playing for the purposes of gambling tonight, and want to buy something tomorrow, you’ll want to use a site such as www.5dimes.eu.

At 5Dimes, you can fund your account with a P2P (“peer-to-peer”) cash transfer. Sign up, contact their live chat and tell them you’d like to make a P2P deposit via MoneyGram. They’ll give you the sender’s name and location and you can head to Wal-Mart, fill out a form, get a money control number, return, and give it to 5Dimes via the site’s live chat. Your account will then be credited within 20 minutes. When you want a payout, contact Live Chat between 9AM and 11AM (Eastern Time Zone), request a P2P withdrawal and the process is repeated in the other direction; the cash will be most often be ready for pick up that evening.

A few US sites are still able to offer credit-card depositing. At BetOnline, for example, you can deposit with credit card, though a 6% processing fee is applied; that fee is offset by a deposit-free sports bet for 15% of the amount of your deposit. When you want to cash out, BetOnline will send you a paper cheque by courier, free of charge. As with other sites, issuing those cheques and sending them internationally takes a few weeks, but it’s a quick solution for getting money onto another site.

As you can see, for US players, speed doesn't necessarily equal convenience. For fastest payouts, we recommend depositing via P2P at 5Dimes. If you just want convenience, use credit card or another deposit with a different site, and get your cashouts via paper check.

A lot of our readers ask, “Why is it so difficult for US players to deposit and what are the legalities of playing online in the US?” Please visit this page for a full explanation on the US situation.

Networks, Software and Platforms

Declaring which site has the best software is another highly subjective area. Fan favorite PokerStars isn’t available in the US, and among BPR’s owners and employees, there are huge votes in favor of 888 Poker and Carbon Poker (Merge), which are both fun, but radically different from one another. Bovada, with its “anonymous player” model, has both its ardent supporters and its detractors, but Bovada remains a long-running quality site regardless of whether or not you like the anonymity at the tables. Players outside the US can even enjoy innovations such as 3D poker, as offered at PKR.

Bring on the Fish!

No matter where you live in the world, we believe some of the softest online games can be found at www.betonline.ag. However, BetOnline is on a smaller network with only average software; and some of their customer-support services (which we also track) lags behind the market leaders. Like Bovada, they are also affiliated with an online, US-facing sportsbook operation and some of the juiciest, weakest online poker tables are populated with sportsbettors who dabble from time to time in poker. Now, if you want a site with almost-as-fishy games that also has good software and support, the best choices are Carbon (US allowed) and 888 (no US players).

What is Your Game?

If you live in the US, your non-hold’em choices are fairly limited. Carbon Poker has decent Omaha traffic and also offers more exotic games such as draw poker with a joker, triple draw, badugi and more, though they get little traffic and are most often played during small-stakes tournaments and in HORSE rotations.

For those outside the US, there are many great options for hold’em alternatives: BetOnline Poker is part of the iPoker network, which has strong Omaha traffic and decent player volume for its stud games.

A wide variety of games with limited player volume can also be found at BetVictor, which is part of the IGT Network. Here you’ll find 5-Card Draw, 5 Card Draw 7-A (an odd poker variant), Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, Americana, Soko and Telesina.

What should you play? You shouldn't necessarily play the game at which you think you’re best. Instead, you’ll make the most money playing the game in which you have the biggest relative edge over the other players. That might be heads-up hold’em sit-n-gos, 7-card stud ring games, large-field Omaha tourneys, or something else. Only by playing, learning, and improving will you learn what’s best for you.

Final Words from BestPokerRooms.com

We encourage you to navigate BPR and absorb all the information we offer. Remember that on our multiple sites and web pages we have tens of thousands of words of content, plus the latest news and we monitor and update based on market happenings on a regular basis.

Whether you’re looking for poker news, strategy, site recommendations or other poker happening, you’ll want to bookmark BPR (hold CTRL + D) and return often. There’s always something new and relevant to enjoy.

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