Not since April 15, 2025 has anybody in the United States been able to legally play online poker. Known in the poker world as “Black Friday”, that was the day the US Department of Justice seized the domains of the largest online poker sites, effectively bringing online poker in the States to a screeching halt.

That all changed on April 30, 2025, when Ultimate Poker, the United States' first legal online poker site, doing business under Nevada Gaming Commission License #31866-02, opened its virtual doors for business.

Unlike its predecessors, who dwelled in a grey legal area with shadowy ownership and shady regulation, Ultimate Poker is operating with a degree of regulation and transparency that should inspire confidence among its customers. In addition to being regulated by the Nevada Gaming Commission, the site is owned by Ultimate Gaming, a subsidiary of Station Casinos. The privately held company owns 16 properties, with 10 casinos in the Las Vegas area, including such upscale properties as the Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa and the Green Valley Ranch Resort.

Station Casinos is owned by the Fertitta family, and two of the Fertitta brothers, Frank and Lorenzo, are co-founders and principal owners of the company that owns and operates UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, branded partners of Ultimate Poker. Anyone who has watched UFC in the last few months has no doubt seen the Ultimate Poker brand heavily featured.

As for the games themselves, the site is rolling out slowly, offering limit and no-limit Texas hold'em ring games, hold'em sit and gos and a handful of multi-table tournaments. Currently, the no-limit games range from $0.01/$0.02 to $3/$6 and the limit games range from $0.05/$0.10 to $10/$20. The sit and gos have buy-ins ranging from $0.25 to $100. The only tournaments listed in the sign up lobby are the $100 buy-in. Sunday no-limit tournament with a $10,000 guarantee and a nightly $50 tournament with a $1000 guarantee. There are a few freerolls listed as well.

Any poker player worth his or her salt wants to know the rake and rake tables can easily be found on the Ultimate Poker website, UltimatePoker. Basically, they are charging a 4.5% rake for no-limit, a 4% rake for limit, and a roughly 10% entry fee on tournaments and “sit and go”‘s. For the $0.25/$0.50 and up no-limit games the rake is capped at $3, with slightly lower caps for the smaller games. The limit game caps range from $0.05 to $3, depending on the stakes.

While anyone over the age of 21 can download the software, create an account and deposit money, at this point you must physically be in Nevada in order to legally play. Deposits and withdrawals can be made via electronic checks, physical checks, bank wires and credit cards. An added convenience is that players in Nevada can go into any Station casino and deposit or withdraw money from their Ultimate Poker account.

It is expected that Nevada will make an attempt to enter into interstate gambling agreements with other states that would make it possible to expand online poker's reach beyond the state's borders. With other states, like New Jersey and Delaware ramping up their efforts to get legal online poker up and running, you can bet that before too long, legal, safe, secure online poker will be available in many parts of the United States. Maybe "Black Friday" wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

About The Author

Reviewed By: +Alvaro Santos

My name is Alvaro Santos, I'm part of a team of experienced poker players, who have been playing poker for many years now. I'm sharing my experiences about the different online poker rooms by reviewing and rating them accordingly take many factors into consideration. I'm reviewing these sites to give you my professional and objective perspective about the best poker rooms online.