NO DEPOSIT POKER

No Deposit Options for US Players Dwindle

What was once a vibrant market with dozens of top-dollar offers has been reduced to little but a shell of its former self.  We’re speaking, naturally, of no deposit bonuses for poker players from a country that has become increasingly hostile toward online poker (at least for real money) –  the United States.

The legal move against online poker in the States first began in 2006 with the introduction of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA.  Despite numerous technical and legal shortcomings, this law eventually executed a near-stranglehold on payment processing for rooms offering online USA poker.  This was especially a problem for the most successful sites, as their total processing volume –  easily hundreds of millions of dollars –  simply could not escape detection by the US Government.

The result: An exodus of nearly every top U.S poker site from the states.  Along with the rooms went the generous promotions that drew so many poker players to the online game in the first place.  As the situation currently stands, we are aware of no offers for US players that allow them to play for real money without a deposit, a sad state of affairs indeed –  especially when their European counterparts have literally thousands in free money, no deposit required bankrolls available for their choosing.

The US seems to slowly be moving to some sort of regulatory compromise that would allow certain players –  aka the large land-based US casinos –  to operate online poker rooms.  What’s less clear is whether or not these companies, who have their own ways of doing things, will be interested in offering the no deposit offers that players have come to expect from rooms.  It may be that companies such as Harrah’s believe that their brand is strong enough to avoid handing out free money, a development that would no doubt sour bonus hunters on US online poker.