US Bwin Poker for American Players

Updated – July 1, 2019:  Bwin is now legal in the United States but only within New Jersey and Delaware. Both Bwin and Party Poker have been purchased by GVC Holdings but are expected to operate separately.

At this current time, Bwin does not accept all American Players. Please view our poker sites reviews page or go directly to www.IgnitionCasino.eu – it has the most US players according to traffic statistical data from Alexa, forums, and my personal views from the past 10+ years.

In 2016, GVC Holdings purchased Bwin. Party for $1.6 billion after many-many months of negotiations.

Bwin’s US History Line

Bwin.com, which is not accepting all US citizens (aside from those mentioned above in 2 states), is an Australia based online gambling company which holds a plethora of gambling licenses, including ones issued by the governments of the UK, France, Italy, Gibraltar, Austria, Croatia, Mexico, and the United States.

In July 2010 a bill, HR2267, proposed the legalization and regulation of online poker in the US which passed the US House Representatives Financial Services Committee by a 41-22 vote. Shortly after, Bwin.com and PartyGaming (the company behind PartyPoker.com) announced plans to merge. This merger saw the merged company traded on the London Stock Exchange, where overnight they become the world’s largest publicly traded online gambling company. Many believe this merger was in part of each company’s preparation strategy to return to the US based online poker.

Bwin and PartyPoker are no strangers to the US market. In fact, from 2002 to late 2006, Bwin’s Ongame network was the world’s largest network, while PartyGaming’s PartyPoker.com was the largest independent poker site. Each company was forced out of the US market by their shareholders due to the passing of anti-gaming legislation in late 2006 by unscrupulous Congressmen and Senators (specifically, but not limited to: Jim Leach, Robert Goodlatte, Bill Frist, and Jon Kyl) using a tactic known as “midnight drop”. If you’re not familiar with this tactic, late in the evening hours on the day Congress was set to adjourn for elections, anti-gambling legislation was inserted into a must pass and totally unrelated bill. The Senate, not even having time to vote on the bill, as this is how late it was added, had a statement already prepared that they had agreed to it by unanimous consent; so as soon as it passed the House late that final evening of the Congressional session, it was there ready to be signed into law by the President.

While the mistakes of the past can not be erased, they can be fixed. Due to demands from millions of members of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), who were perhaps speaking for the some odd 50 million poker players in the US expressing outrage for Congress’s 2006 actions, Congress finally acted. HR 2267 passed the full House and the Senate, and was signed into law by the President. Industry members and operators saw US licensed poker become a reality in 2013. PartyGaming and Bwin merging made perfect sense, as each company positioned themselves to take advantage of this opportunity.

US Shutdown Forces a Merger

PartyGaming and Bwin each bring big name brand potential to the table. PartyGaming brings PartyPoker, the largest US friendly poker site from 2002 to late 2006, and Bwin which has been one of the largest poker networks at certain times. The brand recognition each company has to offer, combined with the networking capabilities Bwin brings to the table, moves each company into a much better position to take over their previous roles as the world’s largest online poker site and largest online poker network. To learn more on this Party/Bwin topic, see our page on US PartyPoker; and for more information in general, browse any of the pages of our site. In the meantime, there are still plenty of large sites accepting US players, please see our homepage.