PokerStars - Bonus and Promotions
PokerStars will offer you a first deposit bonus of 100% on your first three deposits up to $400. On top of this, there is an exclusive offer to deposit £10 and get £20 FREE play with the bonus code ‘20FOR10’. Then, once you’ve deposited, you’ll be awarded with tickets to four $1,000 freerolls every day for 31 days – more than $100,000 in free tournament value. There’s the famous VIP points system, which allows you to claim gifts, merchandise, cash prizes and tournament tickets – all the way up to a Porsche Cayman S, should you reach “Supernova” status.
As well as daily satellites to PokerStars live events across the globe, UK players can compete in the UKIPT Poker League, to win tickets to PokerStars grassroots UK and Ireland tour for as little as £1.10.
Conclusion: Good bonuses and unbeatable VIP programme
Overview
PokerStars is the industry-leading online poker site and the most popular worldwide. It hosts more daily tournaments than any other poker site or live card room, and more hands have been dealt on PokerStars.com than any other site, but what does that mean for the casual player?
Well, first of all, because it has more players than any other site, or network, in the world, it means having to queue for a game – no matter the stakes of variant of poker – is rare. It also means it can offer exclusive satellites to its many prestigious live events worldwide, from UKIPTs to EPTs to APPTs; that it has the capability to offer huge tournaments with huge prizes, such as the $1m guaranteed Sunday Million. It means that, as a global company with a good reputation to uphold, your money’s safe and secured; and it means that, as industry leaders, PokerStars has the resources to funnel into customer services and promotions, and to fund innovation.
In order to cater for the varying tastes of its giant pool of players, PokerStars offers the widest selection of games on the net, including Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, 2-7 Triple Draw, Badugi, plus mixed games like HORSE and 8-Game.
There’s also Zoom poker, the fast-paced cash game format where you play against a pool of players rather than fixed opponents on one table so that your opponents change every hand and you’re dealt new cards the moment you fold.
Conclusion: We love PokerStars, but you’d have to be mad not to.
Software
Available for Mac and PC, PokerStars' award-winning in-house software is the envy of all other poker sites. It’s a site built for players; it was one of the first to allow resizable tables to enable for multi-tabling. Graphics are simple yet fluid.
Conclusion: Simple, effective and not unattractive for it.
Traffic
As we said, PokerStars is the biggest there is by some margin. According to PokerScout.com, as of January 2013 there are on average 22,500 ring-game players at peak hours and 155,000 tournament players.
Conclusion: You’ll get a game of any size or type at any hour. What more can we hope for?