Legal Online Poker For Utah Residents
Welcome to the best place on the internet to find information about legal online poker for Utah residents. Utah is another one the short list of states with extremely unfriendly poker laws. Utah is not just the spiritual homeland of the LDS Church, a group that fiercely opposes gambling in all its forms, it is also a politically conservative state. Washington, Utah, and Utah are often presented as the three states in America most hostile towards online poker players. In Utah's case, it isn't just online poker gamblers that the state is moving to shut down.
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The word on Utah is that there is absolutely no gambling inside the state's borders. What can explain the existence of bingo halls? These halls, three at last count, offer traditional bingo and video bingo games, some of which border on being labeled skill slot machines. They exist because of a loophole in state law. When you visit these bingo halls, you have to buy snacks and drinks, each of which comes with a certain number of credits that you use to play the games inside. Since players aren't buying bingo cards or game tokens, the gambling that goes on inside is technically legal. One of these bingo halls, at Southgate Social Club, has had some trouble from local authorities, and other bingo halls and gaming sites have been shut down in the past, but the fact remains that there is gambling going on inside Utah. Unfortunately for online poker players, there is no similar loophole. According to state law, a person playing online poker would be guilty of a Class B misdemeanor for their first offence and a Class A misdemeanor after their second offense, with felony charges possible for repeat offenders. Though no online poker players have yet been prosecuted in the state of Utah, the framework exists for serious penalties should a citizen of Utah be "caught" placing wagers at online poker sites that are otherwise legal for other Americans living in other states.
Online Poker Sites That Accept Utah Residents
BetOnline is the name and poker room hosting is their game. The services offered at BetOnline to all residents of Utah over the age of 18 are so good that many players will forget they are in their computer and or living rooms and not actually in Vegas battling it out with the poker pros. The atmosphere that the intense tournaments create is palpable even to people not in the game. On most sites it is difficult for players to actually make it into a lot of tournaments early on but BetOnline gives their users a leg up.
With BetOnline the best way to get in the game is to deposit big and play a lot of poker. As new players play more poker they earn more and more points towards unlocking pieces of their deposit bonus. If they manage to unlock all of their bonus then they are rewarded with a total of 200% of their original deposit. This nice little bankroll helps many players on the site get into tournaments the normally wouldn’t be able to leaving them much more satisfied than at a site where they have to struggle from the bottom up.
Utah is a state that has a long and interesting history. It is the home of various people of all different social, religious, and ethnic backgrounds and that makes it one of the most ideal places for online poker. The reason is that people from Utah are able to adapt to different people and different playstyles more quickly due to the variety of people they meet in their life time. For this reason people from Utah often prefer the poker room at SportsBetting because it is one of the most exclusive sites on the web with the best of the best gathering to play some good poker.
SportsBetting is known as the bastion of skilled players because of the big time guaranteed cash tournaments every week. These tournaments are a stroke of genius delivered from on high. Only the best of the best are able to compete due to the high concentration of poker pros in the room. Known for their hard and fast playstyles the pros don’t go easy on even the smallest fish in the sea making sure that these tournaments are a thrilling if not a bit jarring experience every time one enters. Players looking for a less sensational and pressure filled game would want to look into lower stakes games for cash and smaller tournaments. This Utah poker site truly caters to all skill levels.
As other state scramble to put together some sort of regulation for online poker, in an attempt to pad state budgets still suffering from the global economic meltdown, the state of Utah is looking to shut down gambling across the state. Private poker games are often targets of harassment by Utah police, unlike in the states of Texas or Oklahoma, where such games are legal under the right conditions. One Utah law (76-10-1104, "Gambling promotion") could even be used to convict your office buddy of a felony for organizing a March Madness pool.
Utah's laws on gambling are as strict as any in the country, and Utah government officials have come out recently to clarify that Utah will not be pursuing state regulation of online poker sites, even after the Department of Justice declared the Wire Act relevant to sports wagers only. Utah Rep. Stephen Sandstrom has drafted a bill to specifically declare online poker illegal in Utah, saying: "We want to keep Utah free from the negative impacts of legalized gambling. Many gambling critics see the DoJ's recent interpretation as another major crack in America's moral foundation."
What does this mean for online poker players in Utah? You're risking legal action against you every time you play online poker. Don't do it. If you must play poker online, move to a state like New Jersey or Nevada, online poker-friendly states soon to regulate and license their own online poker rooms. Players that do not live in Utah can read alot more information regarding legal online poker in the US here.
Is it Legal to Play Land Based Poker in Utah?
It doesn’t seem to matter where in the nation you travel, you seem to run into poker just about everywhere you go. Ever since the world series of poker became a bon-a-fide, televised cultural phenomenon, Americans can’t seem to get enough cards.
Unfortunately, if you love poker and you’re stuck living in Utah, you may not be able to play a legal game of poker anytime soon, or seemingly ever if the current state legislation has its way. Not only are all forms of gambling on games of skill and chance unlawful at the moment, the state of Utah has opted out of any future federal reform that would allow gambling.
This means that even if the US Supreme Court were to not only de-criminalize playing poker for money, but completely legalize it, it would still be illegal to play in Utah.
For your first offense gambling in Utah, you can be charged with a misdemeanor. This doesn’t sound too bad, but consider second offense makes the crime an aggravated misdemeanor, and after that, if the Utah fuzz catches you gambling in their state again, you’ll be a felon and sentenced to a Shawshank style federal prison where nothing good will ever happen to you again.
If this feels a bit extreme, that’s because it is. Unfortunately, it’s the law.
Where to Play Poker in Utah
Unfortunately, due to the illegal nature of poker in Utah, residents are left with very few options for legally playing poker within the Utah state borders. Although a trip to Las Vegas is always fun, it is not always the most feasible means of ensuring that you can play poker regularly, or even as often as you may wish.
Although private games hosted amongst friends are still technically against the letter of the law, legislation in Utah should not give you too much grief over a home game just so long as you’re careful about a couple key rules.
The most important, and really the biggest distinction to make between the misdemeanor of playing a game in your house and the felony of hosting a poker game is in whether or not you collect profit from the event. This is not to say you can’t win money from a game in your house through betting or wagering throughout the poker game, this is to say that you cannot collect profits for simply hosting.
The most popular means that poker rooms collect profits are through collecting a “rake,” which is a small percentage of each pot that goes to the house or by charging admission for the simple privilege of playing a game of poker in the house.
So long as you do not collect profits from hosting a poker game, not only will you not be committing a felony in the eyes of Utah, but you will most likely fly under the radar of any law enforcement agency. Still, in Utah, it’s always best to proceed with caution.
