Short answer:
Online poker players need not be worried. The only time you will get a problem with internet poker in the US will if you really have a poker site where players can play for real money.
Long answer
Online Poker is in the legal gray area in the United States. There are no federal laws that specifically prohibit activities. However, some politicians have tried to apply wire laws to online poker. There is a lot of debate about online poker in recent years but so far, the right to play poker on the internet has survived.
Online Poker has become a possibility for US citizens since the late 1990s. Some players have played for years and there have been no cases players who were charged with playing poker on the internet. The law is too blurry to make it a good case for every player to be charged with a crime.
Where you will get a problem with online poker is if you actually start the online poker site where players can play online for real money. In this case, you will get all kinds of problems. Countries such as their monopoly on gaming so you can be sure they will sue you if you try to start a poker site or hold an underground poker game.
Although some states (especially the state of Washington) have laws on books on internet poker, no players are charged with crimes playing online poker. Acts that are too vague and poker are too popular because there are realistic opportunities for anyone poker qq online who really gets into trouble playing poker on the computer. In addition, public opinion strongly supports online poker so even the most eager to think twice before taking action against online poker players.
Uigea
UIGEA Law, or the Law Enforcement Enforcement Law that violated the law, was signed into law in 2006. This action does not make online poker or illegal online gambling. This acts as Mantas targeting banks and financial institutions, demanding that they identify poker and gambling transactions and block them.
Until now, the Bank has experienced extreme difficulties that enforce this action. Billions of transactions occur every day in the US and the Bank does not have resources to identify individual transactions. At the end of 2009, the implementation of Uigea was postponed for 6 months to allow more debate and give a bank more time to obey the law.
So far, Uigea has proven to be a impotent legislation. The only effect that Uigea has is that sometimes credit card transactions to the poker site are blocked. In these cases, players only choose different deposit methods and continue as usual.
So what is the last word?
Note that I am not a lawyer and this is not a legal advice but I can tell you that you don’t need to worry about the internet poker. US citizens have the right to do what they want with their own money in their own home. Very legal to play poker in a casino setting so it is difficult to justify it illegally to play online at home.
If you want to play poker online, do it. I have played online poker for years and has millions of other poker players. As long as you don’t really have a poker site, you will be fine.