Party Poker Network Skins
Playing online poker at partypoker is easy and safe, plus it only takes a few minutes to get started. Download our free online poker software, open an account, make your first deposit, get your poker bonus and then enjoy the action. Play poker, casino and sports – all with one account. Along with partypoker NJ, the network also includes the BorgataPoker.com and BetMGM skins. Players can compete on any of these. Players can compete on any of these. The latest WPT event should make for a nice way to close out the year for Garden State grinders.
World Poker Network
Victory Poker moves to Cake network. CEREUS network bought by Bianca Gaming. Major online poker rooms have occupied the headlines in recent weeks announcing switches to different networks. With all the moving around, it's easy to get confused about what it all means, which sites are connected to each other, and which are competing.
Poker Network Sites
There are two ways to create a new poker website. First, a developer could create his own software and develop a customer base from scratch to form the player pool on his site. But it's difficult to get players to sign up and play without an already established group of opponents for them to play against. So the question is how to create something from nothing. There is a second option. Instead of building his own system from the ground up, a developer could create a 'skin,' a poker room that uses preexisting software that belongs to an already established network. The skin has its own brand and user interface but shares the player pool of all of the skins on its network. Although each site may have unique promotions and games, most of the time they share cash games, tournaments, advertising, security, and other features with their sister sites. That means the benefits of the home network should be a major factor in choosing which sites are right for you.
PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker each have unique software and networks that they don't share with any other brand names. They also have other poker networks crushed in terms of number of players. At any time, PokerStars has at least 20,000 people at its cash-game tables and can get more than 150,000 users in tournaments and sit-n-goes. International numbers may start to fall as the legal requirements of several European countries force the site to segregate players in those countries from the global player pool. At present, PokerStars allows U.S. players full access to games, with some restrictions on deposit and withdrawal methods.
U.S. players can also log on to Full Tilt Poker, the world's second largest group of players. Both sites' player bases allow them to offer a wider range of tournament and cash game stakes than other online sites. PokerStars also spreads the most different games, including several variants of stud and badugi, while Full Tilt doesn't offer draw games.
PokerStars and FullTilt may have the largest groups of players, but they've far from cornered the market in online poker, especially for non-U.S. players. Here is a rundown of the other major networks and their sites:
CEREUS Poker: This network was born when UltimateBet and AbsolutePoker merged. It's not many people's favorite poker client, and the CEREUS name change didn't do much to help players forget the cheating scandals associated with either site's original title. Despite the grumbling, CEREUS still has one of the largest player pools on the market, and it accepts U.S. players.
Cake Poker: This is the network all the cool kids want to sit with at lunch. Victory Poker moved to Cake on September 1. Doyle's Room moved here in 2009. Gutshot Poker, Unibomber Poker, and a variety of other skins also share the Cake Network. Because U.S. players are allowed, and several new skins are working hard to rep the network, Cake's player base is growing rapidly.
Bodog Poker: The Bodog network includes only one poker room (Bodog) but also has sports betting and casino sites. Executives are currently investing megabucks in increasing the Bodog brand overseas, especially in relation to sports betting. More name recognition can only help the games on the company's poker site.
Everest Poker: Name look familiar? Everest Poker shelled out top dollar to have its name on the felt at the WSOP, but it is targeting only non-U.S. patrons — for now. Everest caters to European players and has some of the best promotions and live event packages out there. Having kept its nose clean on the U.S. front, it could be first in line for licensing if American online gambling laws change.
Party Gaming: Thanks to PartyPoker, this used to be the biggest network in the world. Since banning U.S. customers in 2006, it lost that title, but Party Gaming is still a major fixture everywhere outside of the U.S. and is talked about with the nostalgia owed a fallen hero by American players. The network also hosts skins of the WPT's brand and Empire Poker.
Everleaf Gaming: Everleaf, home to LuvinPoker and LandShark Poker among others, is one of the few networks still open to U.S. players, yet it lacks the player base big enough to attract more than 1,000 players at any time. It does, however, boast one of the industry's most secure shuffling systems.
Merge Network: Although some of its skins of jumped ship recently, the Merge Network still hosts Carbon Poker, LockPoker, Players Only Poker, Reefer Poker, RPMPoker, and a score of other poker sites. Its software has a few entertaining features, including the ability to muck only one card and rabbit hunt. It's in need of increased traffic, however, before it will be able to support higher stakes.
888 Network: This network grew out of Pacific Poker's software. It now hosts 888poker, LuckyAce Poker, WSOP, and several other gaming sites. It's player base is known for being on the soft side, but U.S. players can't take advantage.
iPoker: Hosting William Hill Poker, PaddyPoker, ChiliPoker, TitanPoker, Winner Poker, and more than a dozen other skins, iPoker is one of the biggest networks in Europe.
Party Poker Network Skins Game
Ongame: With the merger of BetFair and Bwin, Ongame became a huge force on the international poker scene. The network also hosts HollywoodPoker, EuroPoker, and RedKings, but at the moment, has no U.S.-facing sites.
After all this talk about online poker sites, are you jonesing for your poker fix? How about you head on over to our Online Room Review page, pick out an online poker site that suits your need, sign up, and get in on the action.
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This week, the World Poker Tour announced that it plans to deliver a holiday gift to New Jersey poker players. Coming Dec. 27-29, the partypoker US network will host its first-ever WPT Main Tour online event.
Called the WPT Online Poker Open, the $3,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament will feature a $1 million guaranteed prize pool. The World Poker Tour will live stream the final table on Dec. 29.
In addition to earning the first prize, the winner of the event will join the WPT Champions Club and receive free entry into the $15,000 WPT Tournament of Champions. The winner’s name will be added to the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup, joining the names of other winners dating back to the WPT’s start in 2002.
New Jersey event part of WPT’s continued pivot online
In March 2020, the coronavirus pandemic and resulting shutdown of live poker forced the WPT to alter its live schedule. Live events were all postponed, and the tour found ways to continue online via partypoker‘s global site.
An initial WPT Online Series ran on partypoker in May. The series culminated with a $3,200 Main Event won by Christian Jeppsson. The Swedish player topped a 2,130-entry field to win nearly $924K.
The WPT World Online Championships followed, also playing out on partypoker’s global site from July through September. That one ended with a much larger $10,300 Main Event that drew 1,011 entries to create a prize pool of just over $10 million. Winner Phillip Mighall of the UK took away just over $1.55 million.
The late December tournament will be the first WPT event on the partypoker US network. Presently, the network consists of three skins, all restricted to players physically located within New Jersey:
Satellites to the Main Event will run on all three skins, with buy-ins as low as $5.
In the announcement, WPT CEO Adam Pliska characterized the event as part of “WPT’s continued pivot toward online.”
Meanwhile, Angelica Hael, vice president of Global Tour Management, referred to the continued collaboration between partypoker and the WPT, suggesting that “this $1 million guarantee will push our partnership to new heights.”
WPT joins other tours exploring online options
The WPT’s announcement comes less than a week after the World Series of Pokerannounced plans to conduct a hybrid online-live 2020 WSOP Main Event starting in late November and culminating Dec. 30.
That event will be played in part on the WSOP New Jersey site as well as on WSOP Nevada and the global GGPoker site before concluding with live action in both the Czech Republic and Las Vegas.
The WSOP already ran an 85-event online series on WSOP NJ, WSOP NV and GGPoker from July to September.
Both the unusual circumstances presented by the pandemic and legal developments for online poker in the United States are encouraging the WPT’s plans in America going forward.
At present, partypoker US hopes to expand its network to other states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan. However, no new sites will launch in those states until 2021.
Once they do, the forging of a multistate agreement could enable partypoker US and the WPT to expand online player pools considerably for events such as the WPT Online Poker Open.