How Does Online Poker Check Age?

Not only that a gambling landscape in the U.S. is interesting, but it’s also rather complicated, and you need to be old enough to enjoy it as well. Learn at what age you can start playing online poker and how online sites actually figure out your age.

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It is rather interesting how human life comes with certain milestones. Each milestone presents a specific important life-changing direction. You can even connect them with particular actions that happen at specific ages.

For example, at the age of 10 you can choose your religion; at the age of 13, you can have a first part-time job. Furthermore, at the age of 14, you can enter the pub (that doesn’t mean that you can drink though); at the age of 16, you can get a debit card. Moreover, at the age of 18, you can even legally change your name.

So you have to ask yourself, at what age can one play online poker?

Minimum Legal Age for Gambling

If you want to step into the world of poker and play for real money, you need to be 21 years old.

Gambling is a leisure activity that comes with potential risks and challenges, and therefore, one needs to know why it is essential to play at specific online poker sites. Moreover, at the age of 21, you are a grown-up person capable of making sound decisions and being a responsible player.

However, being a responsible player means that you understand what responsible gambling is and what the risks that might be included with gaming are. Furthermore, responsible gambling is a full and broad concept that is designed to deliver the highest standards of quality in each area.

Next, one of the most crucial topics of such an idea is the prevention of underage gambling.

Prevention of Underage Gambling

Prevention of underage gambling is an important aspect of online casinos and their approach toward their gaming policy. Once again, you have to be 21 years old to gamble for real money. This step is applicable to slot machines, poker games, and online forms of gambling.

Every online casino needs to have a clear age verification system to stop any underage gambling activities on their website.

Please note that, in addition to this rule, online operators should have clear registration processes and take the necessary verification steps.

Age Verification

Online poker sites have huge traffic, and it’s in casinos’ best interest to keep the customers on their website and have them play. Furthermore, they are also obliged to check the age of each player.

Good to know: Any underage player who gives false information regarding their exact age will be banned.

There are specific steps that every person needs to take when creating an account on an online gambling site. When you sign up for a new account, you must check a box that shows that you are at least 21 years of age. Visitors create an account, and online poker site collects their personal info, such as name, address, and birth date as well, in order to confirm that the player is not underaged.

Most online poker rooms have different and unique policies as to what age one should be in order to be able to play online poker. Furthermore, each jurisdiction has its own rules and additional policies that are related to online gambling. What does it mean actually — different laws in different jurisdictions? Online poker is not regulated at the federal scale in the U.S., and it’s considered illegal by the U.S. government. However, there are some ‘open spaces’ for states to regulate it as they like within their own jurisdictions.

Online poker sites usually keep their right to restrict access to persons they suspect to be underage in any given moment if they don’t produce the necessary legal information. Online gaming sites reserve the right to verify the age of the players at any given time and reject them. Furthermore, online sites will ask for the information on the parent or a guardian as well. They do that in order to contact the said people so they can confirm the data you provided. If it is not accurate, the player will be removed. So how do online poker providers check the age of their players? By implementing and using an age verification protocol.

Real Poker Story

Once upon a time, there was a young man from the Netherlands who falsely claimed to be 22 years old. He gave the online casino a false birth date, and sometime later, he won $600,000. Not long after that, the casino found out his actual age (as they always do) and his winnings became null and void.

To sum up: You can play for free regardless of your age, but if you try to play for real cash before you are legally entitled to, you will be caught and lose it all.

Recap

Each online poker site has its policy and rules. Those rules have to be in line with the regulative measures of the body that issued that website’s license. That means that each site usually has an age verification process as a mandatory step. Playing online poker in and of itself is made illegal by some states. So, it is highly recommended that players don’t push their luck with premature or illegal gambling, but to wait before they try their hand at this exciting game.