Washington State goes easy on the gambler in general and is pretty much an offline poker friendly state. The are a few pieces of legislation regarding gambling in general, but these are not aimed at the ordinary person, more so to organized crime and the prevention of it. There is no legislation against playing poker in a casino or in your own home. They have however made things tricky for the online poker enthusiast by updating old legislation, banning residents from playing online poker, yet there is no federal law against online poker and we have yet to find anyone who has been in trouble, or on the wrong side of the law due to playing poker online. The laws in in general, as in most states when it comes to poker are a little vague and can be interpreted in more than just one way.
Playing Poker at Home
Playing poker in your own home is perfectly fine as long as the game is kept social and not "professional". Professional is classed as the house making a profit from the game such as taking rake or collecting a fee from each player, but has nothing to do with whether or not any given player wins or losses a hand. Professional gambling, according to the penal code is "Any person who operates, manages, or profits from the operation of a premises or location where persons are charged a fee to participate in card games is conducting first degree professional gambling, a class B felony".
Playing Poker Online
The old 1973 laws were updated and new ones were not introduced due to internet poker, they simply added the word "internet" into a piece called "Gambling Information, transmitting or receiving" which it places as a class C felony. The article states that knowingly sending or receiving gambling information via any of the methods listed is not permitted. There are however many sites that accept players from Washington State and thousands of players from that area log on each evening to enjoy the game they love. The most popular sites are, Americas Cardroom, Betonline, , Carbon Poker and Black Chip Poker.
