About Us
Who We Are
Our platform was built for one reason: American poker players deserve straight answers about where to play. The online poker landscape in the United States is fragmented, with regulated state markets, offshore rooms, and a constant churn of new operators claiming to be the next big thing. We cut through that noise with reviews grounded in research, not marketing copy.
Our team brings years of experience covering the online gambling and poker industries specifically. We’ve watched state-by-state legalization unfold, tracked liquidity sharing agreements between states, and followed how software providers evolve their platforms to keep players engaged. That background informs every review we publish.
Why Poker Players Need a Guide
Choosing a poker room isn’t like picking a casino app. Traffic matters, table selection matters, and rakeback structures can make or break a grinder’s bottom line. Recreational players have different needs entirely: they want clean software, fair tournament schedules, and support that actually responds.
We built this site to serve both audiences. Whether someone is chasing a Sunday Major or just wants a few hands of low-stakes cash games after work, our goal is to point them toward rooms that treat players fairly and deliver on what they promise.
Our Editorial Standards
Accuracy is non-negotiable here. We verify claims about traffic, software, and promotions rather than repeating whatever an operator’s press release says. When a poker room changes its rakeback program or updates its banking options, we update our coverage. Stale information does real damage to a reader’s bankroll, and we take that seriously.
Editorial independence matters just as much. Our site does earn revenue through affiliate partnerships with some of the poker rooms we cover, and we’re upfront about that. But partnerships never dictate ratings. A room that pays for placement still gets evaluated on the same criteria as one that doesn’t, and if it falls short, our review says so. Reader trust is worth more to us than any single partnership.
Leadership Behind the Coverage
Maureen Alstead serves as lead editor for the site. She’s spent over thirteen years in iGaming journalism, with a background that includes regulatory analysis, operator profiles, and senior editorial roles at respected industry outlets. Her work has covered everything from state-by-state legalization to product reviews and odds market analysis, and she brings that same rigor to poker coverage here.
Maureen holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a graduate degree in media studies. That academic foundation, paired with years of hands-on industry experience, shapes an editorial standard built on accuracy, transparency, and clarity for the reader. She oversees the site’s rating methodology and reviews content before it goes live, ensuring every piece meets that bar.
What Sets Us Apart
Plenty of sites list poker rooms. Fewer actually explain why one room beats another for a specific type of player. We aim to be the second kind of site.
Our reviewers look at game types and traffic patterns across different times of day, dig into tournament schedules for both volume and structure quality, and test software for stability and usability. We also examine rakeback and promotional value with a critical eye, since bonus terms can be more restrictive than they first appear.
The US online poker market keeps shifting, with new states considering legislation and existing markets maturing. We keep pace with those changes so our readers don’t have to track every regulatory update themselves. That’s the value we aim to provide: a trustworthy, current, and honest resource for anyone looking to play poker online in the United States.