Example Poker Room Review: Traffic, Rake, Rewards and Payouts

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Example Poker Room suits recreational players who want busy six-max cash games at low stakes and rewards paid in cash. Tournament players will find the schedule thin before the evening, and high-stakes regulars will find few games above £1/£2.

What we liked

• Rewards paid as cash you can withdraw, not tickets or bonus money.
• A debit-card withdrawal that reached our bank in 26 hours.
• Clear rules on third-party software: tracking tools are allowed, real-time assistance tools are banned.

What could be better

• Few tournaments start before 6pm UK time.
• Only two pot-limit Omaha stakes were running on our test nights.
• The mobile app runs four tables at once, against eight on desktop.

We counted players at 8pm UK time on three weeknights and at midday on a Saturday. Evenings averaged about 1,500 cash-game players, most at £0.25/£0.50 and below, so six-max no-limit Hold'em tables filled within a minute at every stake up to £0.50/£1.

Above that, the games depend on a handful of regulars. The tournament schedule peaks between 7pm and 10pm, with a Sunday main event and nightly turbos, but daytime players will often find nothing starting for an hour.

Cash games are raked at 5% of each pot, capped at £3 in £1/£2 games, with lower caps at smaller stakes. Hands that end before the flop are not raked. Tournament fees are shown in the lobby, for example £10 + £1, where £1 goes to the room.

The rewards scheme returns 25% of the rake you pay as cash every Monday, with no tiers to climb. A player who pays £200 in rake in a month gets £50 back. Our guide to rake and rakeback explains how to compare schemes like this one.

• Software: the desktop client ran eight tables without a crash in our sessions, and hand histories can be downloaded for review.
• Game integrity: the room publishes how many accounts it closes for bots and collusion, and says it refunds affected players.
• Account security: two-factor authentication is available and took two minutes to set up.
• Payments: a £50 debit-card deposit arrived instantly, identity checks were approved the same day, and a £40 withdrawal reached our bank 26 hours after we requested it, with no fee.
• Support: live chat answered a question about rake caps in under two minutes, correctly. Email took a day.

Every room is scored on the same weighted checks, explained in how we review poker sites.

18+ only. Play only at rooms licensed in your country, and only with money you can afford to lose.