FTP and Stars pay taxes on a % of there US profits. And its not illegal to play poker online in the US. If it was how do all the sponsored pros continue to play daily on these sites. These players are in the spotlight and have no way of hiding there play like the rest of us. That is if you consider your play hiding or illegal. The pros would be the first taken down as per there status. IP addresses are easily tracked and we would already have been prosecuted.
Online Gambling Is Legal. Gambling online for money is legal in the United States,
with some restrictions on sports betting discussed below. People who fall victim to fraud
in online gambling operations are not lawbreakers. Internet gambling does not break any
federal law and only one state in the union(well Kentucky is trying), Washington, expressly bans it for state
residents.6 Three federal laws regulate Internet gambling.
• The Wire Act limits interstate transmission of sporting results for the purpose of
betting.
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• The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) bars certain states
from legalizing sports gambling.
• The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) does not directly
restrict gambling but instead deputizes banks, credit unions, and credit card
companies to block illegal online gaming transactions.7
None of these laws—and no state laws outside of Washington—bar individuals from
placing non-sports bets online. Sports betting online, except on animal racing, is illegal
everywhere except in states that offered any form of legal sports betting before PASPA
passed in 1991. Almost all other online gambling is legal.
While UIEGA—which does not yet have implementing regulations in force—makes it
illegal for banks and other credit processing companies to transfer money related to
unlawful Internet wagering, it does not prohibit online gambling per se.
However, UIGEA’s ambiguity—it lacks a definition for what constitutes “unlawful
Internet gambling”—will create a de facto ban on Internet wagering in the United States
when it goes into effect by making it prohibitively risky and expensive for credit
processing agencies to determine what types of funds they can handle under the new law.
To avoid risking fines or investigation, credit processing companies would simply refuse
to handle any funds that could potentially be linked to unlawful gambling.