Arizona hosts a vibrant poker scene, but the legality of online poker rooms in the Grand Canyon State is a bit unclear.
This WPT.com guide to playing online poker in Arizona aims to clarify the state’s online poker laws, and direct Arizona players to the best legal poker sites.
ClubWPT is the top legal poker site currently available in Arizona. ClubWPT doesn’t operate as a traditional real money poker room, but it does offer sweepstakes tournaments with cash and prizes on the line.
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Read on for more on how to legally play poker online in Arizona, as well as a review of ClubWPT.
Is Online Poker Legal In Arizona?
Online sports betting is currently the only form of real money online gambling legal in Arizona.
Federal law allows individual states to choose their own stance toward online gambling. Individual states can legalize online poker, sports betting, and casinos, with the appropriate gaming regulation agency in a given state overseeing all aspects of the industries.
More than half of US states have legalized online sports betting. Only and handful of states, however, have legalized online poker and online casinos.
Arizona is home to tribal casinos and live poker rooms throughout the state. Full-scale, real money online poker isn’t currently available in the Grand Canyon State, however.
Sweepstakes poker sites present the best legal alternative to regulated online poker rooms. Sweepstakes gaming is legal in more than 40 states, with Arizona on that list.
ClubWPT, the top sweepstakes poker site available in the U.S., offers Arizona players the chance to win cash in sweepstakes tournaments. You can also win prizes like entries into WPT live events, WPT Voyage Cruise packages, and more.
Is Online Poker Legal In The United States?
US states all have the option to introduce legalized online poker. Online poker laws vary by state.
Only eight states currently allow access to regulated online poker sites. If you’re not in one of those states, you (unfortunately) can’t play at any full-scale, legal, real money poker sites.
Sweepstakes gaming is legal in more than 40 states. Sweepstakes poker sites essentially function as sweepstakes gaming sites with poker as the game.
In states without regulated online poker, sweepstakes poker rooms offer the best legal alternative. You don’t directly compete for cash at a sweepstakes poker site, but you can win cash and prizes.
All winnings at a site like ClubWPT come in the form of sweepstakes prizes. This puts ClubWPT in a different legal category than a traditional real money poker site.
Best Arizona Online Poker Sites
Regulated poker isn’t available in Arizona for now. Your best bet for legal online poker in Arizona is ClubWPT.
As mentioned, ClubWPT operates as a legal sweepstakes poker room. Read on for more about how sweepstakes poker works, and what games are available at ClubWPT.
ClubWPT
ClubWPT offers two kinds of games – free-to-play games (aka Play Chips games) and sweepstakes games. The Play Chips games are available in all 50 states, and give players a great avenue for practicing their poker skills with no purchase necessary and no monetary risk involved.
The sweepstakes games are available via monthly subscription, and award cash and prizes. Two different subscription tiers are available for purchase at ClubWPT, along with an add-on subscription allowing access to special Saturday satellite tournaments.
The subscription tiers at ClubWPT break down as follows:
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VIP ($27.95 per month, access to all VIP tournaments)
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Diamond ($149.95 per month, access to all Diamond and VIP tournaments)
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Super SATurdays ($100 add-on per month, access to Super SATurdays satellite tournaments)
ClubWPT’s sweepstakes tournaments award more than $100,000 in prizes each month. The game formats available in the sweepstakes tournaments include Texas Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, and Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo.
VIP Tournaments
VIP is the lowest-priced subscription tier at ClubWPT. This subscription level allows access to all tournaments under the VIP tab.
VIP tournaments use Tournament Points (TP) as the buy-in currency. You start with 500 TP when you sign up for a subscription, and your TP balance reloads each day.
Tournaments in the VIP tier award TP, cash, and prizes.
A typical tournament in the VIP tier looks like this:
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Tournament Name: $1,000 Mountain
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Buy-In: 400TP
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Prize Pool: $1,000 USD + 202,500 TP Guaranteed
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First Place: $150 USD + 2,000 TP
You’ll also find plenty of freerolls (aka zero TP buy-in tournaments) in this tier, awarding TP, cash, and prizes.
Diamond Tournaments
A Diamond subscription grants access to all Diamond-tier tournaments, as well as all tournaments in the VIP tier. Diamond tournaments award the biggest prizes available at ClubWPT, and the Diamond level is the best overall value among the sweepstakes tiers.
While VIP Tournaments require Tournament Points to enter, Diamond subscribers get unlimited entries into Diamond Tournaments.
There’s no buy-in currency required for Diamond Tournaments, which are open for entry on an uncapped basis for subscribers to this tier. These tournaments are freerolls in a sense, although you do have to pay the monthly subscription to get access.
Both VIP and Diamond tournaments award cash and prizes to tournament winners. The cash amounts and prizes available are substantially larger in the Diamond tier, however.
A typical Diamond Tournament looks like this:
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Tournament Name: $5,000 Cash Guarantee
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Buy-In: Freeroll (unlimited entry for Diamond subscribers)
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Prize Pool: $5,000 USD + 541,000 TP Guaranteed
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First Place: $1,000 USD + 5,000 TP
You’ll also find many opportunities to win entry into World Poker Tour live events in Diamond tournaments. Many of the tournaments on this level award cash and TP throughout the payout ladder, with a WPT live event package as the top prize.
For example, the following Diamond Tournament awarded a WPT Prime Passport (travel package and entry fee for any WPT Prime tournament) as the first-place prize:
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Tournament Name: $2,500 WPT Prime Championship Passport + $500
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Buy-In: Freeroll (unlimited entry for Diamond subscribers)
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Prize Pool: $3,000 USD + 467,500 TP Guaranteed
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First Place: $2,500 WPT Prime Passport + 5,000 TP
Keep in mind that Diamond subscribers get access to both the Diamond and the VIP tier, so the TP earned in Diamond tournaments can be used in VIP tournaments.
ClubWPT Sign-Up Link
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$125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge
One of the biggest tournaments at ClubWPT is the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge. The details for this special event look like this:
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Tournament Name: $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge
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Buy-In: Entries must qualify through other ClubWPT events
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Prize Pool: $125,000 USD
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First Place: WPT Event Package $12,000
The first-place prize for this event is a $12,000 package that sends you to the annual WPT World Championship in Las Vegas.
This tournament isn’t an open-enrollment event. You can only qualify for it through other tournaments on ClubWPT.
Most of the tournaments that allow you to win your way into the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge are in the Diamond tier.
Is ClubWPT A Real Money Online Poker Site?
ClubWPT does not operate as a traditional real-money online poker site.
The platform operates as a sweepstakes gaming site, running poker tournaments that award cash and prizes.
You don’t deposit money or directly compete for cash at ClubWPT. The cash and prizes on the line are substantial, however.
ClubWPT awards more than $100,000 in cash and prizes every month. The flagship tournament on ClubWPT, the $125,000 WPT World Championship Challenge, awards $125,000 in total cash and prizes alone.
The grand prize for this tournament is a $12,000 WPT Event Package that sends the winner to the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas in December.
How Do I Sign Up At ClubWPT?
You can join ClubWPT from anywhere in the U.S. Keep in mind, however, that you can only play the sweepstakes games for cash and prizes if you’re in one of the 36 eligible states.
Arizona is on the list of states that allow access to the sweepstakes poker games at ClubWPT.
Here’s how to sign up for a ClubWPT account:
- Click the sign-up link in any of the ClubWPT ads in this article.
- Click the green “Sign-Up” button at the top right of the ClubWPT home page
- Enter a valid email, choose a username and password, and click “Continue”
- Enter your name, DoB, and physical address, and choose a security question and answer.
- On the next screen, choose your subscription and your payment method.
The free-to-play cash games and tournaments are open to all U.S. players, without a subscription required.
To play the VIP and Diamond games, you must sign up for a monthly subscription package and must be located in one of the 36 eligible states when you play.
If you’re located in Arizona, you’re in luck, as the ClubWPT sweepstakes games are accessible to you (as long as you’re physically located in Arizona while you play).
ClubWPT Sign-Up Link
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How Do Sweepstakes Poker Sites Work?
ClubWPT doesn’t operate as a traditional real-money poker site. The cash and prizes available in the subscription-based tournaments are awarded under a sweepstakes gaming model.
Sweepstakes gaming is legal in more than 40 U.S. states. Sweepstakes poker rooms like ClubWPT aren’t defined by the same legal category as real-money poker sites.
At a traditional real-money poker site, players deposit money and use that money as their stake in cash games and tournaments. When you withdraw winnings from a real-money poker account, that withdrawal involves a direct cash transfer of some kind.
At ClubWPT, players can compete for cash and prizes, but direct cash deposits and withdrawals don’t happen. All prizes awarded in ClubWPT’s tournaments are sweepstakes prizes.
Those prizes include sweepstakes credits that can be redeemed for cash, luxury packages to WPT Voyage cruises, and even seats to WPT Main Tour events.
Is It Safe To Play At Offshore Poker Sites?
If you’re in Arizona and you’ve tried to find a legal online poker site, you might have found a few sites that seem to offer legit online poker games for real money.
These sites might appear to give you a legal option for playing poker online. It’s important to note, however, that offshore online poker sites that operate in the United States are doing so illegally .
Here are three reasons that Arizona poker players should avoid these illegal online gambling sites:
Offshore Poker Sites Conduct Illegal Financial Transactions
Payment options at an offshore/illegal poker site are often limited.
Many offshore gambling sites only allow deposits and withdrawals using cryptocurrency. If you can’t find a way to deposit USD in your account at an online poker room, that’s generally not a good sign.
If you do get to deposit using a bank account or credit/debit card, that transaction will often show up as a purchase from an online shopping outlet you’ve never heard of. That can’t be good either.
When you purchase a subscription at ClubWPT, that transaction clearly shows up on your bank statement as a purchase from ClubWPT.
Your Money And Personal Information Isn’t Secure At Offshore Poker Sites
ClubWPT, and any online poker site backed by the World Poker Tour, operates with a keen interest in protecting your personal and financial information.
If you give your bank account, credit card, or Social Security number to an offshore poker site, there’s no telling where or with whom that information might end up.
If you try to withdraw from an offshore poker site, you’re requesting money from an operation that has no legal obligation to send you your money. If you find yourself on the bad end of a denied withdrawal, you have no legal recourse to file a complaint and recoup your money.
Offshore poker sites operate illegally, and any time you play at such a site, that could be the last time you see your money.
Player Security Is Questionable At Offshore Poker Sites
Offshore poker sites are often infested with bots (aka computer automated “poker players”), player collusion, multi-accounting, and ghosting.
The games at offshore poker sites are quite frequently rife with illegal and unethical activity, as the sites have little incentive to punish bad actors.
Offshore gambling sites are in the business of taking deposits from players. You can’t expect much in the way of player security once they have your money.
Arizona Poker Sites FAQ
Can I play online poker in Arizona?
Yes. While full-scale, regulated, real-money poker isn’t legal in Arizona, sweepstakes poker sites are legal in the Grand Canyon State.
ClubWPT is the best sweepstakes poker site available in Arizona. Arizona players can purchase a monthly subscription and get unlimited access to the sweepstakes tournaments at ClubWPT.
These tournaments award cash and prizes, including entries to live World Poker Tour events.
Are poker rooms legal in Arizona?
Yes. Arizona poker laws allow tribal casinos to offer a full suite of casino games, as well as poker.
Arizona is home to several tribal casinos that have live poker rooms. The Grand Canyon State hosts a thriving live poker economy.
The only form of online poker that’s legal in Arizona, however, is sweepstakes poker. If you come across an online poker room running real money poker games in AZ, that room is operating illegally.
What is the best legal online poker site available in Arizona?
ClubWPT tops the list of the best online poker sites available to Arizona players. ClubWPT operates as a sweepstakes poker platform, with tournaments that award cash and prizes.
You don’t directly play with cash at ClubWPT, but you can purchase a monthly subscription and compete for cash and prizes.
Some of the prizes up for grabs at ClubWPT’s online poker tournaments include travel packages for WPT Voyage Cruises and “Passports” for events on the live version of the World Poker Tour.
Is ClubWPT legal in Arizona?
Yes. The sweepstakes games at ClubWPT are legal in Arizona.
The free-to-play games at ClubWPT are legal in all 50 U.S. states. The sweepstakes games are legal in 36 states, with Arizona as one of those states.
Are offshore poker sites legal in Arizona?
No. As mentioned in this guide, you should avoid playing poker or doing any kind of gaming at offshore gambling sites. Your money, banking information and personal information could be at risk at an offshore gambling site, and the integrity of the games can be questionable.
Is online gambling legal in Arizona?
Sports betting is the only form of online gambling that’s legal in Arizona.
US states have the option to legalize online casino games, online sports betting, and online poker if they wish. Arizona has only legalized online sports betting so far.
Sweepstakes poker rooms are legal in the Grand Canyon State, however. ClubWPT operates as a sweepstakes room and tops the list of the best Arizona poker sites.
Best Arizona Poker Site
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