I do not believe regulated sites offer anything better in terms of safety.
I believe they are the best options for playing poker online if you can get to them. Note: All of the US-friendly poker rooms I recommend on this site fall in to the unregulated category. The biggest rooms in operation are currently: Basically, if you live in one of the green states, you are in the best position for playing online poker because you have access to the busiest online poker rooms available. Unregulated sounds like a negative word, but in this context these rooms have the freedom to accept players from multiple states, and so therefore have much bigger player pools. From here you are free to play at 'unregulated' rooms, which are currently the biggest and most popular destinations for playing poker online.
