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I'm curious how this is possible, do you have to live in Nevada?

I hear chatter of pro players being seen in poker stars all the time, streamers who I'm pretty sure stream from the US playing on PokerStars.

Are these old grandfathered accounts or are they spoofing their IP/location somehow?

Just curious as I always loved PokerStars.

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  • Just a thought, are you sure they're in US and not Canada? eg. Jaime Staples
    – user1165
    Oct 26, 2015 at 20:56
  • Could be possible I suppose for many if not all of them to have a Canadian residence as well if not living there full time. Perhaps that is all it is.
    – James Wilson
    Oct 26, 2015 at 21:04

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PokerStars recently announced a deal with New Jersey to allow players from that state to play, though they'll be playing only against other NJ players and not from the global pool of PokerStars players. At least it's a start. A restart.

Officially PokerStars currently does not allow players from the U.S. At some point in the distant past, I remember seeing a message on their site indicating that if you try to trick them by using VPNs or similar and they find out, they'll reserve the right to take your funds and ban your account. I can't find a similar message at the moment, though.

My guess is that some people might be skirting the law, but that the people who are doing so would not likely be so bold as to broadcast that fact on twitch. A lot of American online pros have relocated to Canada or Mexico or other online-friendly locales, so you might have found some expats to watch.

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  • What is the reasoning for only allowed poker players within the same state to play against each other? I noticed this also occurs with some other software, but never understood why.
    – krikara
    Oct 27, 2015 at 9:48
  • I suspect that the sandboxing of players like that has to do with the legal frameworks required by the jurisdiction they're operating in. I am sure PokerStars and the players would all prefer that there was one global pool, but gambling and tax laws preclude that. Hopefully PokerStars succeeds in NJ and other states see that as a good reason to offer online poker options. Then the odds of getting a larger US-based pool in place will be higher through multi-state agreements. It's definitely limited as-is with an NJ-only pool, especially since other sites already compete there.
    – Chris Farmer
    Oct 27, 2015 at 15:03
  • I think the biggest reason is because goverments don't want money flowing out of the country with no control over how much or how fast.
    – Dom
    Oct 28, 2015 at 12:28

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