The Top 5 Online Poker Sites

To get a ranking list of the top online sites by popularity, you just need to have a look at Poker Scout. Below, are my personal reviews of the Top 5. After this I'll do "5 of the Rest." All of these sites are well-established and very reputable. I have had accounts in all of them and would trust them with keeping my funds safe and easliy available for withdrawal.

POKER STARS

In the States, Poker Stars and Full Tilt practically have a monopoly on the online poker industry. Worlwide, they serve about 60% of the overall traffic. Out of that, Poker Stars has double the traffic that Full Tilt have; making Poker Stars an absolute monster. As you would expect, their choice of games is enormous and waiting time for SnGs is minimal so if you're after variety and speedy access to games this is definitely the place to come. Their software is very well designed and stylish with plenty of features, filters and options. You can personalise your avatar with a picture from your own files. The customisation of the lobby and tables also means you can hone your online experience nicely. The site attracts and contains plenty of serious players including knowledgeable USA players. Personally, I found the site to be quite tough in terms of competition.

 FULL TILT POKER

In the popularity league, Full Tilt occupies a place all on its own. Traffic-wise, it is light years ahead of any other site except Stars but in comparison to Stars it is way behind. As opposed to Stars, its design is not as stylish and refined; the customisation is more restricted and the lobby just seems less user-friendly. It has plenty of backing from big-name pros (not that this is a huge plus) and the choice and speed of access to games is very good. For me, like all US-friendly sites, I tend to avoid it now because of tougher opponents. Further, on a personal level, this is one of the few sites that asked for ID from me, up-front, before I could get access to my money. On the plus side, it is the only US-friendly site that offers a generous monthly rakeback payment.(Not that I take them up on this offer.)

  PADDY POWER (iPOKER)

Party Poker, the Ongame network and the iPoker network are the Big Three of the European based sites and together have about equal amounts of traffic. Even added together though, this still falls well short of the volume that Full Tilt has. The software of the iPoker network, although fairly basic in design, is fairly stable and delivers a no-nonsense swift experience at the tables. However, the filters in the lobby can be very temperamental at times and can even be quite frustrating in narrowing things down as they simply don't always work. Personally, in general, I have found the competition to be fairly straightforward to play against and have achieved quite good results on Paddy Power. Earlier in the year I found there to be a lot of shortstackers but it looks like they have upped the minimum buy-in to 30% now. Unfortunately, I don't have a rakeback deal with this site although if you put the volume in they do have a reasonably generous VIP (points) program.

    PARTY POKER

This is one of the original sites, which, according to all the old-timers was a veritable aquarium back in "the good old days." The crying from the US players on the 2+2 forums, when this site was no longer open to them, could be heard for miles! Nowadays, like all sites I would say, it's no longer the push-over it may have been but still attracts allsorts of players from the spectrum. There are plenty of German players, it seems, and perhaps not so many from the traditionally "good poker playing nations" like those from Scandinavian countries. The software is actually quite similar to the iPoker network and offers a similar experience. Personally, I don't get any rakeback from this site and so don't put in a great deal of volume.

    BETFAIR (ONGAME)

Until fairly recently Betfair had their own independant network and, although pretty tough with lots of knowledgeable players, a very nice experience it was too. Now they are part of the Ongame network which, for me, is the least pleasant software to play on out of these five. Their short-handed tables, for 5 players, still have places for 10 players - which I always find mildly annoying; the chips, text and figures etc are far too small compared with everything else and the audio just sounds tacky. It takes a long time to start up and you are also given no information as to where your opponents are from. On a positive side, Betfair's rakeback deal did carry forward from when they were independent so it's nice to get that privilege and also my balance is always shown in pounds (£) and the dollars alter accordingly. However, after all is said and done, I'm not exactly thinking of rushing back there any time soon.

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In an upcoming post, I will review the best of the rest. These will include Absolute Poker (Cereus Network), Ladbrokes (Microgaming Network), 888Poker, PKR and Poker Heaven (Boss Network).