Party Poker Review

by Ethan Anderson Last Updated
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Sorry, this is not available to Australian Players
Casino Highlights
  • Biggest Card Room in the World
  • Great Site for Beginners and Experts
  • Large Number of Banking Methods
Deposit Options
Mobile Capability
Poker Network

The name Party Poker is one that anyone who has been monitoring the world of online poker for the last two decades, will be extremely familiar with. It’s gone through a few challenges over the years, most notably losing a big chunk of its customers when a change of laws in the US outlawed online poker for US-based customers, but it’s come out at the other end with its reputation and product intact.

Its owner GVC Holdings holds 14 different licenses, including the ones from the UK Gambling Commission and from Gibraltar, which are the ones that Party Poker operates under.

These things are never completely easy to measure, but it’s still arguably the biggest card room in the world.

Party Poker Screenshots

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Bonuses and Promotions

Welcome Offer

A few years back, poker sites used to give the sort of bonuses that would be barely believable these days. You’d deposit 50 AUD or so and you’d have about 200 AUD to play with. Yes, that money would probably have wagering requirements, but still. Sadly, a few too many good players over the years made the most of those welcome bonuses and poker sites had to stop offering them. So, these days the best you can hope for is to maybe double up on a 20AUD deposit, or get entry into a couple of freerolls.

Which is pretty much what you get here. A deposit of 10 or 20AUD gets you as follows:

  • Deposit €10 and get: 1x $10 WPT SPINS ticket

WPT SPINS are our fast-paced, three-handed games, offering you the chance to turn your $10 ticket into a $10,300 Main Event ticket!

  • Deposit €20 and get: 2 x $10 WPT SPINS tickets and 1 x $33 WPT MTT ticket

WPT are the World Online Championships and if you’re already a decent player with some experience, the chance to enter these tournaments by just making a small deposit can really get you off on the right foot.

Other Promos

There is a pretty big promo page on their site which suggests there’s plenty to play for. There is. There are Sit and Go leaderboards and cash game leaderboards to climb up and secure some extra playing money and then there are all manner of freerolls you can enter or satellites that gain you entry into bigger tournaments, with more cash up for grabs.

There’s also a Ragnarök Wheel you can spin which gets you cash up to 1,000 AUD and more tickets to extra tournaments.

Refer a Friend

Why not involve your mates in the fun and get paid for it? Any friend you refer to Party Poker who meets the criteria (it’s hard not to!) is tagged to your account and you’ll receive a percentage of either 5% or 10% of the rake they generated. In other words, if they paid 1000 AUD in rake over a particular period, you’d get to receive 100AUD as a reward for introducing them to Party Poker.

You can actually receive up to 2,500 AUD every week this way, which is a nice little earner, as we like to say. And it’s not like it’s hard work recruiting some friends to what is a good poker site, anyway. Just send a couple of invites via Social Media to some mates you know like a game and it could be as simple as that.

Poker Games and Tournaments

First things first, if you’re completely new to Poker, it’s not so easy getting your head around the different types of games. Each with different rules, betting conditions and unique strategies.

Thankfully, on Party Poker you can visit the ‘How to Play’ section and learn the difference between all the different types. Not just in terms of the number of cards you’re dealt and the rules, but there are also useful tips on how to manage your bank, explanations on why you don’t have to play every hand, a useful glossary of poker terms, advice on how to read your opponents and even explanations on the difference in strategy between cash games and tournaments. It’s very rare that you can find this much useful information on one site about the actual game and it’s all high-class content. So make sure you give it a read, assuming of course you’re not already a seasoned pro.

Whether you’re playing Texas Hold’em, Omaha or something else, these are the sort of events you’ll be looking to play in.

Cash Games

You can play as many or as little hands as you like, no commitment. You can even just be dealt one good hand, win it, bank your money and leave the table.

Tournaments

The rules will tell you clearly the amount of the buy-in, how often the antes go up, the number of players finishing in the money and any other special rules. For the more patient player.

Sit and Go

Tournaments on steroids. The number of players is usually much smaller, play is much faster because blinds go up quicker and you can generally start and finish it within an hour.

Satellites

Satellites are tournaments where winning them or finishing in the money rewards you by giving you entry into further tournaments, rather than cash prizes.

Banking Methods

As is the case with most sportsbooks, casinos and poker rooms, the banking options they have can vary a bit depending on which country you’re in. So, for example, Party Poker may advertise that you can deposit and withdraw using PayPal but that may only be if you’re in country x and y, but not z.

Other than PayPal, there’s also Mastercard, POLi Payments, Skrill, Visa, bank transfer, and Bitcoin, plus a few other slightly less-known E-Wallets.

Depositing and Withdrawing

One thing customers should be aware of is that most but not all methods can be used for withdrawing, as well. By default, your latest withdrawal will go to your latest depositing method so that’s one to think about.

E-wallets are generally regarded as the best method to withdraw with, not just because they’re the safest and most private but also because they’re the quickest. They’ll take 24 hours to be processed, while credit cards are considerably slower at 3-5 days.

Creating an Account

You’re not going to go very far without a valid account!

Opening an account is just a case of entering some details such as your name, address, e-mail address, choosing a User ID and password and confirming that you come from a country that Party Poker accepts customers from. You’ll also need to choose a currency to play in and later on, a deposit method to get some money into your account.

Customers are advised to select the option to receive communications about promotions such as freerolls or other bonuses. You can always ignore them but it’s worth knowing about them all the time for the occasions when you do want to take them up on their offers.

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Customer Support

The worst thing that can happen to a Poker player is to have a big issue and not be able to get through to someone to solve it. Without naming and shaming one of the biggest poker sites in the world (you know who you are) who don’t offer a phone service, meaning you’re at their mercy in terms of them getting back to you, it’s really annoying and unhelpful.

Party Poker do have a phone line and you can also reach them by e-mail or Live Chat. They’re generally pretty good when it comes to actually helping you, as well.

Frequently Asked Questions about Party Poker

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