Laws regarding gambling are sometimes set at the highest levels of government, but many central governments do hand off the job of writing gambling law to local governments. With these general principles established, let's conduct a brief survey of the three major online poker markets and sketch their general legal attitudes on the issue of online poker.

One of the things that makes online poker such a tricky legal matter is that many governments have laws regarding gambling that predate the invention of the Internet (often by a wide margin). These laws can refer to forms of gambling that no longer exist, or are written to specifically apply to gambling in certain physical places. How such laws apply to activity conducted online, and what country has jurisdiction over an act when it takes place across the world are just two of the questions that make applying such laws to online gambling a very complicated undertaking. Existing Gambling Law May or May Not Apply to Online Poker There are literally tens of thousands of different laws around the globe that could apply to online poker in different ways, presenting you with a real challenge when it comes to sorting out which poker sites are legal and which should be avoided. Unfortunately, the legal picture for online poker is as cloudy as it is critical. No one wants to break the law by playing poker online, and no one wants to play at a site that is clearly in violation of the law, as it exposes you (and your bankroll) to substantial risk. The issue of online legality is an important one for players.

Online poker legality per state