Online Poker: What are the best online poker brands?

Poker has gained tremendous popularity this century, mainly due to the rise of online poker rooms. These have given the table game a huge boost and that has ensured that poker would gain worldwide fame. There are therefore a large number of online poker rooms available that offer the most poker variants. However, choosing a poker brand is not easy, as there are quite a few providers and variants to choose from.
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Thanks to our overview of the best online poker rooms, you now get a better idea of ​​the possibilities that you have as a poker player in the Netherlands. I will explain per poker brand what distinguishes the provider and what you can expect. Hopefully your poker playing experience will be as enjoyable as mine. Are you working on your poker strategy in the meantime?

How to play poker

In poker it’s all about winning the card combinations you have in your hand. It is partly about the values ​​of the cards, but also about mastering bluffing and deception. Don’t have such strong cards? Then, thanks to a good bluff, you can still outsmart your opponents and take advantage of poker. You should think of poker as a table game where players have partial information at their disposal. By gaining experience, reading opponents, and doing quick probability calculations, you can estimate reasonably well the probability of success of the move you have in mind. And that is why poker is often referred to as a game of skill and not a game of chance.

Poker game rules in short

Want to know more about the rules of the game? View our page with the poker rules here.
Which online poker variants are there?

Poker is often referred to as Texas Hold’em, the most commonly played variant. In addition to Texas Hold’em, there are many other variants that I will briefly discuss with you below. Each of these variants does require a certain amount of dexterity, so be prepared.

Most played online poker variants

Texas Hold’em – The most popular poker variant and is played with 2 hole cards and 5 community cards. That results in a total of 7 playing cards with which you form a combination with the best 5.

Omaha Hi – The difference with Texas Hold’em is that in Omaha Hi you are dealt four hole cards. There are no differences regarding the community cards. Combinations are made with 9 cards at Omaha Hi.
Omaha Hi / Lo Unlike Omaha Hi, you can only win half the pot. The other half is for the worst hand. Since there are 4 cards, you use 2 for the high hand and 2 for the low hand.

5-card – Draw You are dealt 5 cards, none of which are shown to other players. You may swap cards as often as you want to make the strongest combination possible.

7-card – Stud Hi There are no community cards in this variant. The cards with which combinations are formed are therefore yours. The first 2 of the first 2 cards you get are face down. This is followed by a betting round where you are dealt 1 card each time, which is followed by a betting round. The 7th and last card is closed. You make combinations with 7 cards.

About the best online poker rooms

All the above poker variants can also be played online and that is now possible at a large number of providers. It must be reported immediately that you will automatically end up on a foreign site. In the Netherlands there is no licensed provider of online poker yet, at least not until the online gambling market opens. To play poker online you can go to foreign sites. I must advise you to always play with a provider from the European Union. This way you not only ensure that you play on a site that has a license from the EU, but that is also a lot more favorable from a tax point of view.

Knowing more? Read everything about gambling tax

In terms of the online offer, you will encounter a lot of Texas Hold’em No-Limit in tournament form or Cash Game if you grab the various poker rooms. Pot Limit Omaha and Short Deck Poker are also increasingly popular. All the recommended poker rooms that I recommend further meet strict security requirements and have a valid license. They also offer exciting and high-stake tournaments and games.

PokerStars

With PokerStars, I also immediately have the most advantage serious provider of all. I can point out all sorts of reasons for this, but the Online Poker World Cup (WCOOP) is perhaps the most important one. In 2005, in the heyday of poker, the tournament paid out a whopping $12.8 million. Other poker tournaments such as the PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship and the Spring Championship of Online Poker are also enjoying international fame and attracting equally international audiences.

PokerStars has been around for about 20 years since it was founded in 2001 and that is noticeable by the very complete service of this provider. For example, the software works well, they have excellent customer support, and an excellent range of games. Every day, the website attracts more than 15,000 visitors who are inspired by the TEAM PokerStars, made up of well-known poker players such as Chris Moneymaker and André Akkari.

With Unibet we are talking about a Swedish party that has been active in the world of sports betting for some time now. This bookmaker would enter the market in 2005 and can now count on a reach in more than 100 countries. All in all, it will generate about 5.5 million customers that can be found in all corners of the world. In Europe, Unibet Poker is even one of the most famous poker rooms and that is especially the case since they launched their own platform in 2014. Many people will also know Unibet from the sportsbook, but they are also very big in poker. Still, they are not real poker specialists, at least not when you compare it to other sites that focus solely on poker.

Within the offer you will mainly encounter No-Limit and Omaha, which should be enough for many players, but which the real advanced poker players may be just a little short of. There is at least enough to be won every week, as there is a weekly prize pool of $ 150,000 dollars, while there is also a monthly pot of $250,000. For the weekly tournaments I recommend to keep a spot on your Sunday, because that’s when the tournaments take place.
Bwin Poker

Anyone who loves football will know Bwin too and even the laymen will have seen the sponsorship by now. Real Madrid and AC Milan, for example, were both sponsored by Bwin and I haven’t even mentioned the Belgian star player Eden Hazard. Bwin Poker caters to all kinds of players, both with a small and a large budget. In addition, the prize pool is guaranteed to be $10 million every month, which is a huge amount. Whether you prefer Texas Hold’em, Omaha, or Stud; your variant can be played with this provider.

Also note that Bwin does more than just offer poker. We are talking with this provider about a total provider of casino products. Finally, I advise you not to miss the recurring tournaments: there is the Powerfest, KO Series and Omaha Series tournament that attract a lot of players every edition. There are even several events dedicated to the Chelsea footballer such as Eden Hazard’s Luckbox, Eden Hazard’s Advent, and The Hazard Series. The Bwin and Partypoker poker clients use the same network, so it is not possible to use both clients at the same time.

PartyPoker

With PartyPoker we are talking about a provider that has gained more and more prestige and that is partly due to the high volume of players that you will find on this website. The high visitor numbers, combined with the regular bonuses and excellent software, have ensured that the general opinion about PartyPoker is very good over the years. Also important is the World Online Poker Tour (WPT), a tournament of international standing. Looking at the really big events, I also see that PartyPoker’s flagship Millions offers both live and online tournaments with a guaranteed prize pool of a whopping $ 20 million.

PartyPoker also enjoys an international reputation, because it was founded in 2001, making it one of the oldest poker brands on earth. For some time, PartyPoker was even the largest in the world, but with the ban of online poker in the United States, Partypoker would be hit hard. It has now found itself well again. Now that the US gambling market is gradually opening up, I expect this provider will try to take steps there too. I would also like to draw your attention to Team Party Poker, which consists of poker players like Isaac Haxton, Jason Koon and movie star Kevin Hart.

Betsafe Poker

BetSafe has been part of Betsson since 2011, so you can assume that I am not just talking about a provider here. With the umbrella organization Betsson we are talking about an important name from the gaming industry. We take all

and Betsafe there you see that there are actually 2 websites: Red and Black. Poker Red is part of the OnGame network while Poker Black is again connected to the Microgaming network. You can transfer your balance between the networks and you can also play on both websites at the same time.

Because Poker Blackjack is part of a larger network, the traffic there is also a lot bigger. For the rest, there are not that many differences when I compare the software of both websites. On both websites, the menus of both rooms have become very tight and the sites are also user-friendly, just like the gaming tables. Since we are talking about a site that is mostly known in Europe, you will also notice that the greatest traffic occurs late at night and on weekends. That does not mean that there is just a lot going on every day, especially at the low budget Hold’em gaming tables. In terms of marketing apparatus, there is also a lot to experience, because it is none other than MMA fighter Conor McGregor who takes on the ambassador role of Betsafe.

William Hill Poker

William Hill was founded in 1934 as a sports betting provider, so we can say that we are talking about a rather experienced provider. In 2000 it would also focus on the online casino industry, which is why it launched its own poker site in 2008. Since then, the software has been modernized extensively and has grown into one of the most visited poker rooms you can imagine. This is partly due to the wide range of games and the attractive tournaments that are organized.

For example, every Sunday there is the Sunday $ 250K tournament where $ 250,000 in prize money is paid out. On Fridays, there are the so-called $ 100K rebuy tournaments where a guaranteed payout of $ 100K. The only downside to these guaranteed tournaments is that it requires a lot of sign-ups to get that amount of money. Immediately think of about 1500 players to 2000 poker players and therefore quite a few players play for the prize money. Visually it all looks very nice in any case and I have little to criticize about this provider. William Hill’s global ambassador? World famous British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua.

One Time Poker

One Time Poker (OTP) was set to launch in March 2019 on the wildly popular Microgaming Poker Network (MPN). With that I have indeed arrived at a provider that has not been active for very long, but that is not so bad in itself. They only have to prove themselves in the long term, but in the short term it is going very well with One Time. What is in any case positive is that they operate from Malta and therefore also have the license from the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA). One Time is trying to market itself as an innovative and hip place for poker players looking for a modern poker brand. For the same reason, it works with ambassadors such as Sylvia Hewitt and Kate Ivgi, while Swedish poker player Cecilia Nordenstam also tries to put this poker brand even more on the map.

At One Time Poker they also do that very well live by organizing the MPN Poker Tour every year in which players from all over the world participate. All those players have to do the same: the first prize of a million euros. So you can imagine that they have also made a lot of name at One Time Poker with their own poker tournament.

Full Tilt Poker

I consider Full Tilt to be one of the biggest providers and at their peak I would even have designated them as the biggest in the poker industry. Until April 2011, there were no providers as big as this one, although all ambitions would be shattered in one fell swoop, when the American court would ban online poker at the federal level. Many years later they are very popular with players again and that has to do with the fact that they have won a large number of players outside the United States.

They succeeded with software that is user-friendly and makes it possible to adjust the gameplay to the preferences you have. Although No-Limit Hold’em is also the main variant with this provider, Full Tilt also offers some excellent Pot-Limit Omaha games on the website. All in all, there are about 18,000 players online at peak times playing for real money at a cash game. Do you dare to take on them?

Microgaming MPN Poker

With Microgaming MPN Poker we are talking about one of the poker networks that has lasted the longest and is still very popular among players. MPN was launched in 2003 and has since grown into a stable provider. Most players will know this provider from the MPN Poker Tour Malta where players from all over the world compete for huge prizes. During The Battle of Malta it is about an million euros.

The network itself of this provider is medium in size and if you compare it with that of Party Poker you are about one third. That does not detract from the fact that there is enough to experience and the rakes are also very favorable with this provider: usually about 5%. It’s not very often that I come across rakes that are so low, in that respect Microgaming MPN Poker is definitely recommended. What you should keep in mind is that sometimes it can be a bit limited with this provider if you are looking for less common poker varieties. Do you play the most popular variations? Then this poker brand is more than fine.

FAQs online poker brands

Can I play poker online for real money?

Due to the current online legislation of online gambling, it is not possible to play for money in the Netherlands. This is possible on websites from EU countries. These websites are also accessible from the Netherlands and therefore you can indeed play poker online for real money. Keep in mind that online poker is considered by most people to be a game of skill. This makes it important that you have knowledge about the game.