Best USA Online Casinos

Online casino players look for the best investment, the best games and the overall best experience. In the USA, where the 2006 UIGEA laws about casino gaming can disrupt a player’s quality experience, several casinos have worked hard to establish their presence in the online casino community.

The online casinos for United States players that you see below offer options that surpass other casinos in terms of slot machine games, software capabilities and player bonuses. This makes them the Best USA Casinos in each category.  You’ll also find another detailed list of other USA-friendly casinos that also offer a ton of unique things to players as you scroll down further.

Thanks to years of big changes to online gambling law and an economic recession in America, USA online casinos have been big news lately. Pro-gambling lobbyists and members of the United States Congress have been working for over a decade to clarify the legal position of online gambling in the USA, but an equally strong anti-online gambling movement exists as well.

The American government has gone back and forth on the legality of online gambling within US borders since the country was founded (on money raised from state lotteries, but that’s another story). Because of the legal grey area that USA online gambling exists in, most online casinos no longer do business with American customers. For online gamblers in America, playing the games they love now means working hard just to find a site that will accept their wagers and a legal payment transfer method to fund their player account.

How to Pick a USA Real Money Online Casino

Since American players don’t have as much choice in online casinos as citizens of other countries, picking an online casino is a little tricky. Generally, look for a casino that has been in business for some time with experience dealing with American customers. But you should also make sure that your chosen online gaming site does business in the American dollar and that it allows a payment transfer method that you have access to. Every United States online casino has its own lineup of approved payment methods, some of which aren’t available to Americans.

Best Online Casinos for US / United States Players

Rank	Online Casino	Bonus	Games	Learn More
1.		$5000	142+ Games	Slots.lv Casino
2.		$1000	140+ Games	Bovada Casino
3.		$4000	120+ Games	Lucky Red Casino

USA online casinos have been through a lot in the past ten years. Originally, American real money online casinos were plentiful and unrestricted, allowing transfers using credit cards and bank wire transfers. These days, United States-friendly online casino sites are rarer than in the past, and Americans that want to play online casino games have to do a little bit of work to find a site that accepts their currency and offers funds transfers using a system that Americans have access to.

Are American Online Casinos Legal?

The short answer to this question is “yes.” Some online casinos operate fully within the boundaries of the law and accept wagers from Americans. Headlines about specific sites being shut down (such as the buzz surrounding 2011’s “Black Friday” for USA-facing online poker sites) may have led people to think that online casinos are illegal in the USA, but there is no specific national law banning Americans from gambling at online casinos.

There are more online casinos that don’t serve the American market than ones that do. Restricted access to online poker and online casino sites for USA players means some online gaming sites go out of their way to attract business from Americans, some putting USA right in the name of the site.

To add a bit of complexity to the question, some states have their own laws against online gambling. As of this writing, nine states have specific laws targeting online gambling: Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin. People who live in these states should familiarize themselves with their state gambling laws and make sure they aren’t breaking state law by placing bets online.

What Is the UIGEA?

In 2006, then-President George W. Bush signed the UIGEA bill into law. UIGEA stands for Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and was meant to put a stop to online casino play in America by making it illegal for banks to do business with online gambling sites. The bill didn’t really have teeth, since third party payment processors and other means of funding player accounts already existed. What it did accomplish was to scare away a lot of online gaming sites, forcing them to close their doors on American customers.

The UIGEA is not the American government’s latest salvo in the debate over legal online gambling. That comes to us from the United States Department of Justice, and their clarification of an old anti-gambling law that could pave the way for widespread online casino gambling in America.

The Future of United States Online Casinos

In 2011, a handful of states petitioned the US Justice Department to clarify the 1961 Federal Wire Act. That act, which effectively made it illegal to transmit bets over phone lines, had been used by the government over the years to justify the fight against online gambling. In December of 2011, the Justice Department issued their ruling, stating that the Wire Act applies only to bets placed on sporting events.

State governments already hard-pressed for cash thanks to the poor economy immediately saw an opportunity to raise revenue by selling lottery tickets online and (in at least a dozen cases so far) planning to open state-regulated online gambling websites.

The future of USA online casinos will likely be some combination of state and federal regulation and relaxed rules about certain types of online bets. Some states, namely New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Iowa, appear ready to open the doors to their own state-regulated online gaming sites as soon as they can, with plans for those states to pool their player base, much like multiple-state lotteries do. While state regulation may not be the open invitation to online gambling sites that some Americans were hoping for, it is a step in the direction of fully legal online gambling and funds transfers.

Online Casinos and the US Dollar

If you find an online casino that accepts American players but doesn’t do business in the US dollar, playing at that site could be a huge headache. Converting currency is a hassle, an added expense, and totally unnecessary, since there are American-facing online casinos that do business using the American dollar that don’t require any currency conversion.

The US dollar is even available at online casinos that don’t accept bets from Americans. The venerable USD is a world currency, traded in international markets and recognized as a financial standard in many countries. It may seem counter-intuitive, but don’t assume that because an online casino accepts the US dollar it has to accept American bets. That’s just not the case.

These best USA casinos are solid choices for United States players who want to maximize their experience with slot games, player bonuses or software quality.