As more states legalize online poker, the question of how to regulate the game becomes increasingly important. There are several reasons for the increased regulatory burden on the operators of online poker. The UIGEA, or Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, passed Congress in 2006 and was signed into law two weeks later. It makes it illegal for banks to process payments for illegal gambling sites. It pushed most publicly traded sites out of the US market, but many have since returned to the market thanks to state regulations.
A common way to avoid this problem is to play the games on a site that supports the software. Many sites offer instant play games, which are browser-based games. These games respond to the size of the screen and are not ideal for small screens. Most sites have menus for their major variants of the game, split along the top of the navigation bar. Players can also sort games by size, speed, and other factors, using checkboxes and tabs. Tournaments also have their own navigation.
The software that is required to play online poker is downloaded onto the player’s computer before starting the game. This requires little memory, and even on a slow connection, should take only a few minutes to download. If the poker software isn’t free, there are no download versions of the games on many sites. However, these don’t offer the same features as the downloaded versions. While these options are tempting, you should always check the legality of the site before playing.