I recently discovered Seals With Clubs online poker which is open to players from the entire world including the U.S. and uses the novel method of Bitcoins as it's medium of exchange.  If you were unaware of them (as I was until recently) Bitcoins (or Btc) are a 'digital currency' introduced in 2009 by a person (or group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto and are based on advanced cryptographic processes, the 'coins' themselves are safe, secure and peer-to-peer meaning they are very anonymous and hard to trace or block.  Bitcoins can be and are bought and sold on many internet sites or 'exchanges' which operate much like other currency exchanges where people who have bitcoins and want to sell them are matched with people with government issued currency who want to buy bitcoins at a price which varies with supply and demand. More can be read about Bitcoins on Wikipedia, here...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin  .
The upshot of all this is that Seals With Clubs seems to be operating legally in all jurisdictions currently as they accept no 'currency' nor convert any currency (thus, for U.S. players, not violating the UIGEA and Wire Acts).  In addition to the fact that it seems perfectly legal for anyone anywhere to play for real money, it allows Seals to offer very anonymous play (you aren't even required to provide an e-mail address to sign up and play) and extremely fast and simple cash-ins/cash-outs.  I discovered Seals and have been playing there for more than a week now and find it a very enjoyable experience, most of the players are friendly and there is a good atmosphere, traffic would have to be considered relatively light but increasing almost daily it seems.  I recently made the acquaintance of Seals owner/operator Alberto Knox (on the 2+2 Internet Poker Forum) and he agreed to do the following interview.

BTCPkrBlog:    How long has Seals With Clubs been in operation and how is traffic, and has it seen an increase of late?

A.Knox:    Traffic has grown slowly the entire time we've been open until about 6 months ago when the growth rate started
to increase. PokerScout.com has some historical data.

BTCPkrBlog:    Your software seem very reliable and stable, are there plans in motion to add features and if so what might they be and when can we expect them?

A.Knox:    Our software is Poker Mavens by Briggsoft. They are working on an HTML5 client and we are separately working on an Android app that is already in public beta and available via our website.

BTCPkrBlog:    Bitcoins would seem to be a completely legal (in the U.S. at least) way to play Internet Poker since there are no 'financial institutions' involved in transferring funds either TO or FROM Seals, which means it clears the UIGEA, and the recent DOJ memorandum saying that Internet Poker is OK under the Wire Act.  Is that your understanding as well?  Any thoughts on the legality or Internet Poker legislation (in the U.S.) in general?

A.Knox:    There are no laws specific to bitcoin or bitcoin based gambling. It is not clear how various jurisdictions will eventually classify bitcoin or what actions governments will take. We don't think we are doing anything wrong and our plan
is just to carry on and see how things develop.

BTCPkrBlog:    Where is Seals based?

A.Knox:    Seals servers are in Iceland.

BTCPkrBlog:    Most Internet Poker players are concerned about the security of their funds since the Black Friday failure of Full Tilt and other industry 'problems', to that end... Are player funds and company funds segregated to protect both players AND company?

A.Knox:    Players funds are completely separate from operating funds and will never be used for anything except paying players.

BTCPkrBlog:    Speaking of security, one of the major points about Seals is that it is anonymous.  Do you purge all IP records and other means for governmental or service providers to track players and if so, how often?

A.Knox:    We currently do not purge IP records but may in the future. Players concerned about privacy are welcome to use proxies, though some common bitcoin accepting proxy's IPs have been blocked for malicious behavior.

BTCPkrBlog:    You have a rewards system known as Krill.  Would you like to give a brief explanation of this?

A.Knox:    Krill is our version of player points. It is unique in that your level will never reset or decrease at all. As you earn krill by playing raked ring game hands your rakeback level increases you get chip prizes and you become eligible for more
freerolls. Currently triple krill is awarded for playing between 5 and 9am ET.  Our krill and rakback systems currently do not apply to SNGs and tournaments. However, our SNG rake is very low, 2-4%. And many tournaments have great overlays.We also have 50% rakeback for everyone which applies to all 2 and 3 handed play in 6-max and 9-max tables.

BTCPkrBlog:    Seals also has a fun freeroll every hour and several nice guarantee tournaments.  Are there plans to expand these in the near future?

A.Knox:    We have been running hourly freerolls with one 50 chip (1000 Seals chips is 1 bitcoin) prize since shortly after we opened. We've given away over 550 bitcoins just in this tournament. Another long standing freeroll is the 5000 chip Wednesday night DonkDown.com freeroll.  Recently we've started offering 1 chip entry tournaments with guarantees from 200 to 1000 chips. There is no pattern to the timing of these games and sometimes they will show up shortly before start time, so check in often. Sorting the tournament lobby by buy-in is the best way to see them.

BTCPkrBlog:    Seals has a robust promotions program.  Would you like to give us any hints on what might be coming in the near future?

A.Knox:    Prizes are paid in NLHE ring games for quads, straight flushes and royal flushes. Prizes at 10/20 and higher were doubled for January and we've decided to keep that going.

BTCPkrBlog:    Bitcoins themselves seem to be an expanding idea and have the potential to create HUGE rewards for early adopters.  Do you have other investments in the Bitcoin arena and/or are you invested in them as a commodity in and of
themselves?

A.Knox:    I run two other bitcoin related websites:
MyriadCoins.com is a simple trustless gambling utility. The users enters the amount they would like to risk, the amount they would like to win and the bitcoin address where they would like to receive payment. Then the site makes an offer in terms of
odds. The user accepts the bet by sending the bitcoins. If they win payment is made to their bitcoin address.
Firstbits.com is a bitcoin address shortener which is nothing but a simple rule. The benefit over regular address shortener is that there is no proprietary database, only the public blockchain and the public rule is required. This means that other sites
can also preform lookups if firstbits.com is offline. Blockchain.info is one example.  The benefit of a short address that allows you to look up a full address is that you can easily remember it or pass it verbally, say over the phone. A downside is
that using the same address publicly and repetedly allows analysis of your transactions. Also unlike full bitcoin addresses where a typo stops a transaction from happening a typo in a firstbits address will usually cause a payment to go to the
wrong address. You must be very careful when using firstbits addresses.
I do have some bitcoins of my own.

That concluded my interview with Alberto Knox, owner and operator of Seals With Clubs currently the only completely legal way that U.S. players can play traditional poker on-line for real monetary value AND a fast growing player in the world of
online poker, period.  So, stop by the tables at Seals and we might just play a hand or two, look for me, my screen name on Seals is XSpectre.

PS.  Click on the links on this page to signup or use XSpectrre as your referrer and there's good karma coming your way.... ;)