Best Legit Online Poker Sites

Do you know how to guarantee that you’ll have a good time playing poker online?

Not only that, but online poker sites need to have the qualities listed in the first section for either player to have a good time, let alone the best. Because without those qualities, no poker room online will appeal. Poker is a game that deftly combines skill and luck, and distills it in a way that produces competitive formats. Visited by poker players from around the world, the best online poker sites today provide poker aficionados with tremendous opportunities to play many popular variants of the game, participate in online poker tournaments, and more.Poker sites.

Best Legit Online Poker Sites

You sign up (only) to the best online poker sites. It’s the only way.

But do you know what the best online poker sites look like? Or, the differences between a bad poker site and a great one?

We do. The differences are night and day.

Back in the day when we played at PokerStars, we would also spend some time at Full Tilt. The rest of our time playing cash games was at Absolute Poker.

PokerStars was the best poker room because they had:

• The best software.
• The most game options and variations.
• The biggest guaranteed prize pools, tournaments and tournament series’.
• The best and fastest support staff.
• The best VIP scheme.
• The most traffic (which is the most important quality).

And so on. Because they were so dominant then, we have no doubt they’re still leading the pack in most, if not all of these categories today.

But the other two? They didn’t even come close.

It’s still the same today. The landscape has changed – many pros have moved to playing offline, and many (if not most) poker sites have decided to focus on the needs/wants of the recreational players.

But even though the landscape has changed, the traits that make up the best poker sites will always stay the same.

Unlike brick-and-mortar gambling institutions, Internet poker is not governed by a central regulatory body. This means that uncovering legitimate poker sites can sometimes be difficult. After all, even the veteran online poker player sometimes does not know what to look for when searching for a legal and legit Internet poker room. With today's incredible software and Internet technologies, a gifted programmer can create a gorgeous poker site that for all intents and purposes appears to be reputable. But if that web portal does not employ security measures which keep your personal information safe, if it has not been legally licensed and certified, how do you know if you are dealing with an honest web operator providing legitimate online poker?

To use gambling terminology, your chances of arriving at one of the legitimate poker sites the Web has to offer is basically a crap shoot, unless you do some homework. We are lifelong gamblers, both online and off, and want nothing more than to get right to the tables to enjoy some responsible, adult poker fun while wagering real money to keep the action exciting. But over the years, we have unfortunately discovered the hard way that you must have an intensive review process in place first which identifies those required characteristics that point to a trusted and secure Internet poker experience. Is it fun spending hours and even days with this extensive review process when we could simply log on to any site and begin playing? Of course it isn't. But the due diligence performed in this review process is worth many times its weight in gold for the safety, dependability and peace of mind that it returns by identifying legitimate poker gambling choices.

In recent years the United States has decided to allow regulated Internet poker that is sponsored by individual states. Some states like New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware have hopped on board this new Internet poker industry, and some have not. As more and more of these legitimate poker sites run by US-based and certified companies begin to offer their products online, we will review those options as well. But currently, offshore jurisdictions (cities, states and countries located outside of the US) where Internet gambling has been regulated and legalized are where you will find legitimate usa online poker websites. The problem is that since there are so many different locales offering licensing, and some are more reputable and trustworthy than others, you need to understand where your poker room's licensing originates. UK Poker rooms have no issues at all since online poker is 100% legal across the pond.

The governments of Curacao, Gibraltar and Panama, and the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, Canada, are just a few of the more reputable licensing bodies that you can trust to certify honest, secure and legitimate poker gambling providers. And if you are not sure which licensing bodies located around the world are known as those which operate with the highest levels of integrity that is okay. As industry consultants we can quickly identify the legitimate poker sites as compared to disreputable and possibly even dishonest offerings quickly. This is because we understand which governing authorities and regulatory bodies subject themselves to fair gaming oversight, while also employing honest and reliable Internet gaming commissions to apply the licensing process.

To be totally transparent, at the bottom of this page we identify the exact review process we use to identify legitimate poker sites. Feel free to follow our lead and perform your own due diligence using the intensive review criteria we outline below. And if you neither have the time nor the desire to enact this review process, simply refer to the reviews and recommendations listed here on our site. We only recommend those sites offering legitimate poker gambling options as dictated according to our exhaustive review process, and will never refer an Internet poker room where we ourselves would not play. Listed below you will find a constantly updated list of the top legally licensed and trustworthy Internet poker rooms, those dependable and secure websites which we rate the highest in customer satisfaction, security and overall performance.

How We Identify Legitimate Poker Sites - Our Review Process

Above we listed several generalizations that we take into consideration when attempting to identify legitimate poker sites. So that you can undertake your own reviews, or if you merely want to understand how complete our review process is, we go into depth in this section explaining the individual components that we use to reject or recommend the many different Internet poker room offerings found on the web.

Honesty and Trustworthiness

Just as in your day-to-day dealings with individuals and businesses, identifying honesty and trustworthiness in an individual many times has more to do with feeling and instinct than with any hard indicators. However, in the Internet gambling industry, online forums can offer a wealth of knowledge. Poker forums are widespread online, and by searching for customer complaints and recommendations, one can begin to understand if a site offers a legitimate online poker experience or not. Also, if an Internet poker room is very transparent with its fair gaming, responsible gaming and security attitudes, and offers an extensive FAQ section, these are also excellent indicators that you are dealing with a legit site. Contacting a website's customer support team via phone call and/or live chat will also offer some excellent insight as to whether you can trust a particular poker offering or not.

Fair Play Consideration and Security Profile

We mentioned fair play above, and what this refers to is very simple. Often glossed over by less than reputable Internet poker websites, frequent testing of the Random Number Generator (RNG) and virtual card shufflers used to dictate which card shows up next is extremely important. Legitimate poker sites have no problem in openly discussing if they use independent, third-party testing labs to review and randomly test their software. Technical Systems Testing (TST) is one example of an independent organization known for honest and unbiased testing of casino gaming software, and is always a hallmark of a legitimate poker gambling operation. What level of SSL security and data encryption is employed by particular website also needs to be investigated, as well as what type of poker software is employed.

Most Legit Online Poker

Legal Poker Licensing And Certification

We really should have listed this review stipulation first, since it is absolutely the most important and immediate identifier of a legitimate online poker site. Think of all the poker rooms on the web as all the restaurants in your city. If you knew that certain restaurants were legitimately licensed and regulated, wouldn't you make sure to eat at those particular businesses? You would certainly not trust any restaurant that did not qualify for legitimate licensing to prepare and serve food, would you? The same goes for Internet poker rooms. Legitimate poker sites absolutely must be certified by an official governing body, in a jurisdiction where online gambling is legal and regulated, or you are taking an unneeded risk with not only your money, but your sensitive personal and financial data as well. Stick to online poker websites which have been legally licensed and certified, and then look for other criteria that identifies the cream of the crop.

Banking and Payout Choices

The review criteria found here is pretty straightforward. Considering the hundreds of different regulatory stipulations governing deposits and withdrawals made at Internet gambling sites, your particular ability to open and maintain a real money account at a legitimate poker gambling website can differ drastically depending on your jurisdiction. That is why the best poker sites will always offer a wide variety of identifiable and preferred banking options, both for deposits and withdrawals. Credit cards are the preferred deposit method for Internet poker accounts, but not all financial institutions, especially in the United States, support credit, charge, debit and gift cards for Internet gambling deposits. However, we have identified those legitimate poker sites which do allow credit card account funding for US and other players, as well as multiple deposit options and speedy, reliable withdrawals.

The Rest

Looking at the above criteria we use for reviewing and recommending legitimate poker sites, you will notice that these are things the typical online poker player usually does not bother to investigate. Taking time to research licensing, discussing with a customer support team member banking and payout options in your particular jurisdiction and reviewing security protocols and software are not very sexy tasks. But the information we receive by doing this extra work has led us, as online poker players ourselves, to uncover those sites which offer legitimate poker gambling choices to US and international players. Only after we have satisfied ourselves that the above stipulations have been met, do we go on to check other more commonly reviewed characteristics.

Online Poker Sites Scams

What types of welcome bonuses and ongoing player incentives are offered? Is the interface visually and audibly enjoyable? Also, is mobile poker supported for your smartphone or tablet? We also demand that there is a wide variety of well supported games, and that cash game traffic is high day and night so you do not ever get 'stuck' at the tables with an unfavorable position. Finally, we get an overall feeling for a poker site from the Internet poker community through chat rooms and forums, and by tapping into our network of industry consultants and investigators. The average Internet poker player does not have the time, the inclination or the ability to perform such an intensive investigation of a prospective poker room. In our effort to become the go-to site for everything regarding legitimate online poker offerings, we review and recommend the most honest and legit online poker sites frequently, so bookmark this page and check back often for the latest recommendations.