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Can you play online poker in California despite the lack of local gaming sites? Yes, but only if you know which operators are active in the Golden State.
I’ve sifted through the local gambling regulations and tested every legitimate place to play poker online in California. After countless weeks of research, here are the best online poker sites in California and why you should try them.
150% deposit bonus up to $2,000
100% Bonus up to $1,000 + 8 days of Tournament Tickets
100% Bonus up to $500
100% Poker Bonus + 100% Casino Combo Bonus
New Player Bonus Up To $2,000
100% up to $2,000
200% Bonus up to $1,000
How do the top places to play online poker for real money in California compare? Here’s a quick overview of the top sites, their bonuses, and gaming options.
California Poker Site | Welcome Bonus | Promo Code | Poker Network | Poker Games |
CoinPoker | 150% deposit bonus up to $2,000 | CPLAYER | Independent | NLHE, PLO, 5-Card PLO |
Ignition | 100% poker bonus + 100% casino bonus up to $3,000 | N/A | PaiWangLuo Poker | Hold’em, Omaha |
ACR Poker | 100% deposit bonus up to $2,000 | CP1000 | Winning Poker Network | Hold’em, Omaha, Stud |
Black Chip Poker | 100% deposit bonus up to $2,000 | CP100BCP | Winning Poker Network | Hold’em, Omaha, Stud |
BetOnline | 100% deposit bonus up to $1,000 | NEWBOL | Chico | Hold’em, Omaha, 6+, Pineapple |
We need to build a foundation before we talk about how to play online poker in California. The foundation, as you’d expect, is made up of high-quality CA poker sites.
I’ve tested the top platforms and found five that stand out from the crowd. I’ll give you my personal take on these online poker CA sites at the end of this guide.
Before that, here are some important facts and figures for what I believe are the best online poker sites in California.
What makes CoinPoker the best place to play online poker in California? Here are a few reasons:
Ignition caught my attention because of its cash games, but what else does it have to offer online poker players in California?
ACR Poker has become my CA online poker site of choice for tournaments, but it has some other unique qualities that make it a great place to play.
Black Chip Poker isn’t a carbon copy of its stablemate ACR. It has a lot of unique features, as well as the benefits given to it by the Winning Poker Network.
Sports betting might be its forte, but BetOnline has one of the most entertaining poker rooms in California.
I can’t talk about how to play online poker in California without bigging up bonuses. Anyone who’s been around poker for a while knows that variance can be a killer.
It’s tough to take when the right moves yield the wrong results. We can’t avoid variance, but we can reduce some of its negative effects with bonuses.
The bonuses below are available at the best online poker sites California has to offer. You should claim as many as you can from these offshore poker sites because they provide guaranteed returns, even when luck isn’t on your side.
Every top-rated California online poker site gives you something extra when you register. That extra something is usually in the form of bonus cash and/or free tournament tickets.
Welcome bonuses that give you both are great. However, if you’re forced to choose (you’re not, as I’ll explain in a moment), bonus cash is often best.
You don’t have to choose between welcome bonuses because there’s nothing stopping you from joining all of the best CA online poker sites. In fact, I’d encourage you to claim as many welcome offers as possible because they’re the biggest bonuses you can get.
No deposit bonuses, aka sign-up bonuses, are unlocked when you complete the registration process. This means you receive some bonus cash and/or tournament tickets without making a deposit.
A deposit bonus, as you can guess, hinges on a financial transaction. Match deposit bonuses are the most common. These offers give you bonus cash equal to the value of your first deposit.
Other deposit bonuses could be worth 150% or more of your initial deposit. The important thing to take note of with these bonuses is the minimum deposit. The best online poker bonuses in California are triggered when you deposit between $10 and $30. If you’re able, you should deposit the maximum in order to get the most bang for your buck.
Reload bonuses are, simply put, deposit bonuses for existing customers.
Reload bonuses are smaller than first deposit bonuses, but they’re an easy way to top up your bankroll. Again, just be mindful of the minimum deposit and the maximum bonus payout.
It may have sounded like I have an aversion to free tournament tickets because I’d rather have bonus cash. That’s not the case. Tournament tickets are great, it’s just that the potential returns are unknown.
Some people like that. BetOnline is big on tournament ticket giveaways, and some of the events you can enter have generous prizepools.
Therefore, if you can make the money or win one of these tournaments, the returns are excellent. However, if you don’t cash in the tournament, it won’t boost your bankroll.
VIP rewards when it comes to playing poker online in California often manifest themselves as rakeback. BetOnline does have a more traditional rewards program that gives you bonus cash, tournament tickets, and special prizes.
However, as California online poker sites such as CoinPoker, the amount of rake you contribute to the ecosystem is returned in the form of cash. These rebates are known as rakeback, and, in my opinion, they’re essential if you play online poker for real money in California.
The best rakeback deals return approximately 30% of the rake you pay on a weekly basis. So, if you contributed $1,000 in rake, a 30% rebate would net you $300 in cash. What’s nice about rakeback is that the cash can be withdrawn instantly or used at the tables.
Sending your friends to the best online poker sites in California gets you bonuses. In fact, if your referrals use your exclusive link/code and complete the wagering requirements, you’ll both receive a bonus.
There are various ways to play online poker in California for real money. Most of you will know a bit about Texas Hold’em, and while it’s great, it’s not the only game in town.
Here are the main variants you can play at my recommended California online poker sites:
Almost every major poker event is Hold’em, so you’ve probably seen this variant during WSOP broadcasts or online streams. The basics of Hold’em are as follows:
The appeal of Hold’em, particularly No Limit Hold’em, is the creative lines you can take. Unlike Stud and Draw, where your poker strategy often depends on your cards and math, Hold’em gives you scope to be creative.
As a result, bluffing and value betting are much more common in Hold’em, which is why it’s so popular.
Fans of Hold’em can play Short Deck (aka 6+) at BetOnline. This spinoff variant has a stripped deck, which means all cards lower than six (5, 4, 3, 2) have been removed, creating a 36-card deck.
Reducing the number of cards in play affects the hand rankings. In 6+, a flush beats a full house. This creates an interesting dynamic that high-stakes pros such as Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan love.
Omaha is, in many ways, the same as Hold’em. Almost all of the game dynamics I described in the previous section apply to Omaha. However, there are two main differences:
These rules mean you have more possible hand combinations. This increases the game’s volatility, which basically means weak hands are easily counterfeited. Therefore, Omaha, as a game, has more action than other poker variants.
Poker isn’t always played with community cards. Stud is a classic variant where each player receives their own set of cards. These seven cards are dealt over the course of five betting rounds.
Your job is to make hands from the cards you’re dealt while simultaneously taking note of your opponent’s cards. How is that possible? Because some cards are dealt face-up, and some are dealt face-down.
Here’s how the cards are dealt in Seven-Card Stud:
Stud is most commonly played as a high-hand game, which means the highest-ranking hand wins a showdown.
However, some of the top online poker real money California sites, such as ACR, have Stud Hi/Lo. This variant awards 50% of the pot to the best high hand and 50% to the best qualifying low hand.
Other poker variants to be aware of are:
These games aren’t available at the top CA online poker sites. However, you can learn more about them by checking out our how to play poker guide.
Can you play online poker in California for real money? Yes, but only if you know the best ways to make deposits and withdrawals.
There are various ways to move money around the online poker ecosystem in California, and all of them are safe. However, some payment methods are better than others.
Personally, I’m a fintech fan, which is why I recommend modern methods such as Bitcoin and Tether. For the sake of clarity though, I’ll give you a brief overview of the more traditional payment methods first.
Traditional methods use legacy banking protocols to process payments. These processes are tried and tested, so online bank transfers and debit/credit transactions are incredibly safe.
That being said, they’re not the most efficient. This means debit card withdrawals can take up to five days, while bank transfers are often completed within seven days.
Additionally, you might have to pay a small processing fee for bank transfers. None of these things are prohibitive. They’re simply the price you pay for the security of using traditional banking methods.
Modern CA online poker payment methods are slicker than their traditional counterparts. They’re slicker because digital protocols allow money to be transferred via the internet more efficiently.
The main methods available when you play online poker in California are:
Purchase a prepaid card at selected retailers or via an online wallet. Each card contains a code you enter at your chosen CA poker site. Funds are deposited instantly, but you can’t use this method for withdrawals.
You’ll know how an eWallet works if you’ve used PayPal. Although this method isn’t as readily available in the US as it is in Europe, California poker sites like ACR work with Luxon to offer digital wallet payments.
The future of online poker in California is cryptocurrencies. I say this because Bitcoin et al. are universal currencies designed for digital transactions.
The decentralized nature of crypto transfers means transactions are processed anonymously in seconds. That’s perfect for security-conscious California online poker players who want instant withdrawals without any fees.
Try CoinPoker if you want a pure crypto poker experience.
Should you take advantage of what California’s leading online poker sites have to offer, or do the negatives outweigh the positives? Based on everything I’ve found, there are plenty of reasons to ante up at the best Golden State poker sites.
Pros
Cons
My job is to review online poker sites. Like everyone else, I have my own preferences, but I believe in balance. That’s why I give you honest assessments.
As you can see from my California online poker site reviews, I’ll give you the positives and the negatives. That’s important for me and for CardPlayer as a company.
We pride ourselves on delivering balanced content, even if we have a sponsorship deal with a particular company. That’s why you can trust our reviews.
I’ve given you some facts about online poker in California and my recommended sites. Before I bring this guide to a conclusion, I want to offer some personal insights.
These are my thoughts and can’t be taken as facts. However, I’ve been playing poker for more than a decade, so I know what works and what doesn’t.
This, combined with the information I’ve already provided, should help make better decisions when it comes to playing online poker for real money in California.
CoinPoker has been my main site since the start of 2024. I wasn’t sure if a fully blockchain-based poker site would work, but I quickly learned that it does. You might notice that it takes a fraction of a second longer for new hands to appear compared to other online poker sites in California.
That’s because CoinPoker’s random number generator is on a blockchain. The upside of using a different system from other online poker CA sites is that the results of all hands can be verified instantly by anyone. Thus, game integrity is never an issue.
The other major benefit of using CoinPoker, other than 33% rakeback, is the fact it only accepts cryptocurrency. This could be a problem if you’ve never used Bitcoin or any other crypto before. However, if you have, you’ll know that this means you can be anonymous while enjoying instant deposits and withdrawals.
If you’re a novice and want to play poker online in California, join Ignition. Of all the California online poker sites I’ve tried, Ignition has the softest games. The main reason you’ll find more fish here than other sites is the platform’s casino.
Gamblers looking for new opportunities often cross over from the casino. Some of them know how to play poker, but most don’t. This makes them easy targets if you’re willing to play a patient, tight-aggressive style of poker.
I’m not a huge fan of the design. Aesthetically, the site is lacking something, and there aren’t that many features. What I do like, however, are the anonymous tables. Being able to play undetected is a great way to avoid scaring off the weak players.
I had reservations about joining ACR Poker because of the software issues it’s experienced over the years. I needn’t have worried. Although the software runs slightly slower at peak times than non-peak times, I haven’t experienced any major issues with regard to reliability.
That’s a positive because the cash games are some of the best I’ve played. There’s plenty of variety, and, at least when it comes to Omaha, the standard isn’t particularly high. I’m also a fan of the table design. It’s quirky without having too many unnecessary features.
In fact, what’s unique about ACR is its features. As well as bomb pots and the ability to run cash game hands twice, you can stake players in tournaments or ask for staking. This feature is made even better by the fact ACR hosts massive MTTs with prizepools topping $12 million.
I tend to use Black Chip Poker for its rewards rather than anything else. I say that because it shares the Winning Poker Network with ACR, which is currently one of my main poker sites for tournaments.
The benefit of being a stablemate of ACR is that Black Chip has the same selection of cash games, big-money MTTs, and features such as staking and bomb pots. The downside is that it often lives in the shadows of its counterpart.
However, if you’re a fan of loyalty rewards, I recommend Black Chip’s Elite VIP program. It’s one of the best I’ve used in recent years, not least because it’s fairly easy to unlock exclusive prizes if you’re a regular player.
Full disclosure: I originally joined BetOnline for sports betting. However, after discovering that it offered poker, I crossed the void. This turned out to be a good move because I love the software.
The table layout and design aren’t as slick as some California online poker sites. However, I love the little extras like straddles and insurance in cash games. The bad beat jackpot and addition of 6+ Hold’em and Pineapple are also nice touches.
What really makes this one of the most entertaining poker sites in California are throwables. It’s completely unnecessary, but having the option to throw virtual objects at opponents is incredibly fun.
So, there you have it. That’s how to play online poker in California and get maximum value from your time at the tables.
As I’ve said, there are plenty of legal and safe CA poker sites to choose from. Each one has its own strengths. Your job is to choose the sites that suit your needs.
CoinPoker is my top pick because of its focus on crypto technology, but all of my recommendations have something to offer.
Try them all and see what you think. Then, once you’ve found a few you like, start grinding and have fun.
Before you go, here are a few final things to think about before you play poker online in California:
If you’re looking to play online poker in California for real money, CoinPoker is absolutely the way to go. In addition to completely safe and anonymous crypto transactions, the 33% rakeback is practically unbeatable in the poker industry. Plus, if PLO is your game, they have the best Omaha poker games in the poker world. – Blaise Bourgeois, CardPlayer poker expert
It’s not illegal to play real money online poker in California, despite the fact there are no regulations in place. California is classed as a gray market, which means online poker is neither legal nor illegal. That’s why you can access licensed offshore poker sites such as CoinPoker from California.
You can play online poker in California for real money by using licensed offshore sites such as ACR Poker, Ignition, and CoinPoker. These sites operate legally in various countries around the world. The best way to play real money online poker in California is to use universally accepted cryptocurrencies such as BTC and USDT.
The easiest way to play online poker in CA is to join regulated offshore sites like BetOnline using our secure links. These links take you directly to the registration pages of the best online poker sites California has to offer. From there, you can sign up, claim generous welcome bonuses, and play safe real-money games.
It’s unclear if or when California lawmakers will pass a bill that regulates online poker in the Golden State. Efforts to create a regulatory framework go back to 2017, but disagreements between politicians and local Tribes have stifled progress. The good news is that you can use offshore sites to play online poker for real money in California.
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