Guide to Online Poker in Connecticut
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Shawn West
- September 16, 2024
Connecticut residents looking to play poker for real money have access to two of the biggest tribal casinos in the country, with Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun both a short drive away. Both native American casinos have busy poker rooms.
If players are looking to play poker without heading to a casino, options are more limited. The state has not licensed any online casinos, meaning there are no locally-regulated options within Connecticut that offer online poker. The only options are offshore casinos, located outside the U.S. These Connecticut online betting sites are not under the jurisdiction of federal gambling law or local state law, meaning they don’t need a license from the state to offer Connecticut card sharks the chance to win cash by playing poker against online casino players around the world.
Best Sportsbooks in Connecticut for 2024
| SPORTSBOOK | TRUST SCORE | ONLINE SINCE | Expert Review | BONUS | Bet Now |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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2011
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$750 Cash Bonus
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2002
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100% Free Play
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1996
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$500 Cash Bonus
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CT’s Top-Rated Online Poker Sites for 2024
There are dozens of offshore sites that offer live online poker rooms. Which ones are the best options—trustworthy and busy, with a variety of game options and levels of play? To answer that, we had a team of experts evaluate the various options available to Connecticut gamblers. Here are their recommendations, in ranked order.
- BetOnline – The highest welcome bonuses paid to Connecticut poker players
- Everygame – Connecticut’s highest rakeback
- SportsBetting.ag – Timely payouts and low rakes
Can you legally play poker in Connecticut?
Connecticut has taken a liberal approach toward gambling laws. The state was among the first to embrace off-track betting in the 1970s, land-based casinos on tribal land in the 1990s and sports betting in the 2010s.
It’s currently possible to play poker in the state in person, at either Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun casino. However, the state still doesn’t have any regulated online poker market. That means the only options to play online poker for real money are at one of the offshore gambling site options that are available, which are not under the authority of state law. Offshore casinos also offer video poker, and many of them also have separate live poker rooms, with connections to dealers via video. These sites have been allowing Connecticut residents to play, as well as paying out cash jackpots to winners for years.
Comparing the Highest-Quality Connecticut Poker Sites
Every poker room is different, whether in person or online. And the online poker rooms in our rankings offer very different gambling experiences. Online poker players are all different as well, each with their own personal preferences and priorities.
So, to help make sure you choose a table in an online poker offering that is the best match for you, our experts produced in-depth looks at each site in our rankings, complete with pros and cons comparing each one.
1. The Highest Welcome Bonuses Paid To CT Poker Players: BetOnline
Key Features
- Offers the highest poker welcome bonus
- Pays out a million dollars a day in tournament prize money
BetOnline placed No. 2 in our expert panel’s rankings. It is also affiliated with one of the busiest poker networks in the Chico Poker Network. Other online poker platforms that are members of Chico include SportsBetting.ag and Tiger Gaming. It is the third busiest network that allows American players.
U.S. players make up about half of the player pools for games on the Chico network, and Chico is known for having the highest liquidity of any large poker network, meaning there are high-stakes cash poker games going on all the time, with more than a million dollars a day in tournament prize money up for grabs.
Our experts’ review of BetOnline Poker found that the site offers a great deal of variety among the live dealer games going on at any given time. There is a wide range of stakes, table limits, skill and experience levels, meaning any player will be able to find a table that is a good match for their own level.
BetOnline offers low tournament buy-ins, and some of their tournaments allow re-entry. BetOnline also pays out the highest poker welcome bonus in the state, matching initial deposits up to $1,000 when using BetOnline promo codes, giving you a nice head start on your real money gaming.
They offer a nice variety of tournament options, including bounty limited tourneys, shootouts, progressive bounties, rebuy frenzies, sit ‘n’ go’s and Omaha tournaments. Variations on individual games include Seven Card Stud, Mississippi Stud and Texas Hold’Em. Additionally, BetOnline features a comprehensive casino section and a very solid online sportsbook.
2. Connecticut’s Highest Rakeback: Everygame
Key Features
- CT’s best rakeback, returning up to 36%
- Welcome bonus matches first deposit at 200%
Everygame is the next online poker room recommended by our online gaming experts. They were impressed that Everygame pays the biggest poker rakebacks in Connecticut.
What does that mean? Poker players are often charged an entry fee to play in games or tournaments. That fee is known as the rake. Offshore casinos frequently offer a cash-back rebate, returning some of that fee to regular players as a loyalty bonus. That is known as a rakeback — i.e., you get back some of your rakes.
Everygame refunds up to 36% of a player’s rake. The generosity doesn’t end there — They also match initial deposits at 200%, up to $1,000. There’s also cash-back rebate program returning a percentage of net poker losses in addition to numerous promo codes at Everygame, providing great value to the platform’s customers.
Everygame Poker is a member of the Horizon Poker Network. Their variations on poker include sit ‘n’ go, freerolls and ring games. They also have a full casino experience with a sportsbook, racebook, and online casino featuring your favorite games.
3. Low Rakes And Timely Payouts: Sportsbetting.ag
Key Features
- Charges the lowest rakes in CT
- User interface is fast and responsive after recent upgrade
Sportsbetting.ag rounds out our list of recommended poker rooms for Connecticut players. Sportsbetting is a sister site of BetOnline, which was No. 2 in our rankings. Both of them are members of the Chico Poker Network, which is the third-busiest poker network including American players. It’s also one of the highest liquidity networks in the business.
Sportsbetting was recognized by our panel for offering the lowest rakes in Connecticut, meaning it’s cheaper to enter tournaments or online games at Sportsbetting than any other site.
Like its sister site, SportsBetting has a busy tournament schedule with prize money that tops a million dollars a day. The site also recently upgraded its software and now has a fast, responsive user interface. Bettors at SportsBetting.ag can take advantage of one of the platform’s highly competitive bonuses.
SportsBetting also has a top sportsbook and a huge range of table games and slots, giving gamblers a full casino experience.
Our Rating Methodology
There are a number of factors that make an online poker site worthy of being recommended by our panel of experts. There should be a busy network with a wide variety of players from around the world, giving a range of betting limits, as well as skill and experience levels.
Poker has a vast array of variations, so the tournament and game schedule should include plenty of options for play.
Our experts also evaluated online poker operators on their bonuses and promotions offered, the quality of their customer service, and what the online poker industry thought of the site in online customer reviews.
The History of Gambling Laws in Connecticut
Connecticut has a long history of pushing the envelope when it comes to gambling laws. As the country becomes more and more open to various gambling activities, Connecticut is usually leading the way in each new development.
The state first began legalizing gambling in the 1930s and offered off-track betting on horse and dog racing as well as jai alai in the 1970s, long before most states adopted it.
In the late 1980s, they began looking into options for native American casinos on tribal land. And, most recently, the state was one of the first to pass online sports betting laws, giving three online sites in the state exclusive rights to offer sportsbooks.
However, the history of poker gambling online still has yet to be written. While Connecticut residents can play in person at the two tribal casinos, there are no locally-regulated poker sites in the state.
Supposedly, in the future, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos will have licensed poker sites, but at the moment, the only way to play real money poker online in the state is at an offshore sportsbook like the ones in our rankings.
Top Features of the Best Online Poker Sites
While the various online poker options offer very different playing experiences, there are some things that all online casinos need to offer. Our experts identified a group of factors that a top poker site needs to have to be considered for our recommendations.
Competitive Gambling Odds
Odds and lines offered in all the gambling areas of online sites should be fair and representative of what they would be in a live, in-person casino. Payouts in poker games should accurately reflect the risk, and gamblers should have a reasonable chance to win money.
Betting Markets
Poker rooms should offer a wide range of poker variations and a variety of games base on different levels of experience, skill and table limits. The site should also offer other gambling markets, including sportsbooks, racebooks and a selection of online casino games.
Deposit & Withdrawal Methods
The top sites should offer a range of ways to conduct financial transactions. Traditional methods like bank wires, debit cards and credit cards, including American Express, should be available. And bank transfers should not have excessive fees or delays associated with them. Sites should also offer newer methods, like crypto options and e-wallets.
Promotions & Bonuses
Sites should compete for your business with a variety of offers. Sites should greet new users with a bonus code that will provide a deposit match bonus with a percentage of your initial deposit. Existing customers should be able to get reload bonuses with a promo code. Sites should also have a specific poker bonus, in addition to the site-wide deposit bonuses.
Live Dealers Available
Many sites offer video poker, but we restricted our rankings to sites that offered a live poker room. To get the full poker experience, players need to have the human interaction that comes with a game—reading tells and bluffing. That requires a live dealer connection via video feed, something that can’t be simulated with computer-generated cards in a video poker game.
User Interface
The user interface should provide a smooth, entertaining poker experience. Technical problems such as lags, page crashes and other glitches should be kept at a minimum, and the feed should be responsive and attractive. It should be easy to place bets with the interface.
Mobile Site Quality
More players engage in online poker with their phones than with a computer, so the mobile site should be just as functional and attractive as the main site. It should be easy to navigate and read, even on a smaller screen, and pages should load just as quickly and reliably.
Customer Support Team Contact Options
When there are problems, the customer support team should be available and easy to reach, with a variety of methods, from phone to online chat to email. Customer service should be available 24/7, with short wait times.
Site’s Security & Safety Features
When you are playing for real money online, it is important to be able to trust that your financial information is being protected. Any site that didn’t have a bulletproof reputation when it came to safety and security was immediately disqualified from consideration for our recommendations.
Land-based Poker Rooms in Connecticut
Connecticut is home to two of the top live poker rooms you’ll find, outside of Las Vegas and Atlantic City. The state has two of the largest tribal casinos in the country, Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods. In addition to hundreds of video poker terminals, both casinos offer live dealer games in their poker rooms.
Foxwoods Resort Casino
Foxwoods Casino was one of the first tribal casinos in the U.S. and has offered poker since the 1990s. It features the third-largest poker room in the world and the largest outside of California. It currently offers 114 tables with games including limit & no-limit Texas Hold’Em, limit and pot-limit Omaha Hold’em, Hi/lo and seven-card stud (high only and hi/lo).
Mohegan Sun
Mohegan Sun has also been dealing poker at One Mohegan Sun Blvd since the 1990s. They boast the most-visited poker room on the east coast, with 42 tables of live dealer games with variations including Omaha, Texas Hold’Em, No Limit Texas Hold’Em, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Lo (Razz), Badugi and 2-7 Triple Draw. The weekly tournament schedule includes No Limit Texas Hold’Em and Bounty tournaments.
Poker Game Varieties in CT
Poker is the most popular card game in the world, and the online poker market is just as large and diverse. There are dozens of variations on play and betting in poker. Here’s a quick rundown of what you might come across at the recommended offshore poker rooms.
Online Poker Tournaments
Online poker tournaments are multi-game, multi-player events, usually with cash prizes for the winners. The tournament can range from a few players at one table to hundreds of tables and thousands of players if it is a popular tournament series. Obviously, tournaments with more players usually have larger prize pools. Players are eliminated when they run out of chips, and the ultimate winner is the person who ends up with all the chips.
Cash Games
Poker games with cash prizes that are not part of a tournament are called cash games or ring games. They play for real money, or chips representing real money. Cash game tables usually have no predetermined end time and players can come and go from the table throughout the game.
Sit & Go Games
Sit-and-go games have no predetermined starting time. When a specified number of players—often six or 10—are seated at the table, the game begins. Games are usually fast-moving, and players usually start with the same number of chips.
Freerolls
A freeroll tournament is one that doesn’t charge an entry fee. Often, it uses a points system instead of cash wagering.
How to Create an Online Poker Account
Creating accounts at offshore poker sites is fast and easy. You’re just a few minutes away from collecting your deposit bonuses and beginning play.
Step 1. Sign-Up With an Online Poker Site
Choose one of the recommended online poker site from our rankings and click the open new account button on their site.
Step 2. Verify Your Poker Account Details
Enter your registration information and verify your identity by responding to a code texted to your phone.
Step 3. Deposit Funds Into Your Poker Account
Choose a method for depositing money from the options listed on the cashier page of the poker site. Enter your information. This is when you would enter the promo code to collect your welcome bonus. Keep in mind that many match deposit bonus offers will require you to make a minimum deposit in order to qualify.
Step 4. Enjoy Playing Poker Online
That’s it. Find a table and get dealt in. Good luck
FAQs – Real Money Poker Sites in Connecticut
How can I gamble online in CT?
There are a number of ways to gamble online in CT. Horse betting and sports betting is available from sites licensed by the state. However, to play online casino games, live poker or other activities, you would need to use offshore online gambling sites like the ones in our rankings.
Can CT residents bet online?
Residents of Connecticut can bet on sports and horse racing through local operators; however, for the best variety of online gambling options, including real money poker games and online slots, you will want to use an offshore site.
Can I play poker online in Connecticut?
The current gaming laws do not allow local operators to offer poker games to Connecticut residents, but offshore options abound. We recommend Bovada, BetOnline, Everygame and Sportsbetting.ag as the top options for poker play in the state.
Where can I play poker online legally?
The state of Connecticut has no licensed online poker providers. The only way to play legally is at offshore sites, outside the jurisdiction of state law. We recommend Bovada, BetOnline, Sportsbetting.ag and Everygame which have allowed state residents to play for real money for years.
Is Bovada poker legal in CT?
Bovada does not accept player registrations from Connecticut.
