PartyPoker Review

Party Poker is one of the longest-established online poker sites. Once a market leader but still one of the busier sites with a wide selection of games in many formats to suit players of all bankrolls. Party Poker is strong on player promotions with all new depositing UK players receiving a play-through bonus of up to £400 and £40 ($60) worth of free poker tickets. Additionally, players can opt-in to an ongoing cashback promotion that returns up to 55% of rake and fees, paid weekly.

Party Poker’s new UK  player offer has two main components:

1. A 100% matched deposit bonus of up to £400
2. £70 in Free Play Tickets, awarded over 6 days.

Note that all play on Party Poker is conducted in USD and your balance in £ is converted into USD when you sit in a cash game or enter a poker tournament. Winnings are converted back to £ when you leave the table or complete a tournament.

£400 Matched Deposit Bonus

All new depositing UK players automatically receive a matched deposit bonus of up to £400. To qualify, an initial deposit of at least £10 is required. Any amount deposited, up to £400 will be matched by a bonus that is released in 10% chunks when certain playing requirements are met. 

These playing requirements are quite straightforward, every $4 of rake/fees paid releases $1 of the bonus amount. For example, if your initial deposit is £100, it will be released in batches of £10 every time you meet the playing requirements by generating £40 of rake/fees.

Party Poker Free Play Tickets

In addition to the matched deposit,  Gambling.com UK readers who deposit for the first time with Party Poker also receive £70 of free play, which is awarded as Party Dollars, which can be used to buy into any poker game on the site. These are awarded over 6 days, P$10 per day.

• Available to all new UK players age 18+
• Minimum deposit of £10 required
• Valid for 90 days from sign-up, after which any unreleased bonus will expire.
• Withdrawals are not permitted until the bonus is cleared, or the remaining bonus is forfeited
• £40 free play is awarded in 6 x P$10 tickets, one per day, for 6 days
• P$ tickets are valid for 7 days, after which any unused tickets will expire.
• Make sure to go over the full T&Cs on the site when you sign up.
• Please gamble responsibly.

More Party Poker Offers

Promotions are central to the Party Poker experience. There are usually several running at any one time, many of which are run on an ongoing long-term basis. The highlights include:

• Up to 55% cashback on rake and tournament fees for all players, paid weekly.
• $15k in prizes for daily Spins leaderboards.
• One free spin per day on the Daily Party Gift prize wheel.
• Boosted Hours for Fast Forward and Sit & Go’s.
• Fast Forward  and Sit & Go Daily Leaderboard with $1k prizes each.

Cashback

Cashback is the main loyalty mechanism used at Party Poker, instead of the more complex or gamified VIP programs of other online poker sites. Players can earn up to 55% of their rake and fees paid in weekly cashback payments. It's quite straightforward:

• Players are awarded points for playing, awarded at variable rates, depending on the format chosen. 
• Fast Forward cash games award the most points, while MTTs award the least. 
• Players must earn at least 10 points per week to earn cashback, which is paid out weekly, every Monday.
• A boost applied by Party Poker to every player, which is a multiplier, enabling points to be earned at a faster rate. For example, new players are awarded a 70% boost, enabling points to be accrued much more quickly during their first few weeks of play. Thereafter this boost percentage is adjusted weekly, depending on your level of play.
• There are also ways to earn additional points, as some of the prizes on the Daily Party Prize Wheel are cashback points.
• The variable rates at which points are earned and the player boosts mean that the amount of cashback earned varies, depending on which games and volume played, but it is a minimum of 20% and maxes out at 55%.
• For new players on a 70% boost, playing Fast Forward, it takes just $1.50 of rake to qualify for the lowest cashback amount, which is 50c.

Daily Spins Leaderboards

Fans of Jackpot Sit & Go tournaments, or Spins as they are called on Party Poker benefit from $15,000 awarded in leaderboard prizes every day. There are separate leaderboards for each buy-in level, with the top 50 players in each receiving a prize. It's mostly a volume-based promotion, with more points awarded for games with higher prize multipliers, as you earn points regardless of your finishing position. In total there are seven leaderboards and if you play games at more than one buy-in level, it is possible to win prizes from more than one leaderboard on the same day.

Other Daily Leaderboards

There are also daily Sit & Go Leaderboards and Daily Fast Forward leaderboards with $1k in prizes for each.  

Daily Party Gift Wheel 

This is a prize wheel that every depositing player gets to spin once per day. Prizes include tickets to the daily $500 freeroll, cashback points and Spins tickets.

Boosted Hours

This is a promotion that runs daily whereby players of the Fast Forward format earn cashback points at a faster rate than usual. Known as boosted hours, they run between 9 am and 9 pm, with varying rates of boost at different times of the day.

Party Poker Overview 

Party Poker is one of the longest-running online poker sites, having been in operation since 2001. It soon became the world’s largest online poker site, with over 250,000 concurrent players at peak times. However, Party Power relinquished its status as the market leader in 2006, when it exited the US market following the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). 

Party Poker is now owned by gaming investment giant Entain and operates largely in regulated markets, including the UK, where it is licensed by the UK Gaming Commission.

Party Poker Games Available

Party Poker has an extensive range of available games and formats. Players can expect to find all the usual offerings, such as cash games, sit and go’s, jackpot sit & go’s, fast-fold poker and multi-table tournaments. Each of these broad product categories has its section, within which poker players can find a good range of game types, with many different and unique options on ways to play. This includes innovations such as tables that display players’ real names rather than screen names, which are utilised for some cash game tables and MTTs. Game information is well presented and formats such as fast-fold have well-written intros to help guide players who are unfamiliar with the newer ways that poker is being played in the 2020s.

Online Cash Games at Party Poker

Cash games on Party Poker include No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha and Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo and Fixed Limit Hold’em. Short Deck No Limit hold’em (6+) tables are also available. Most of the tables are 6-max, however, heads-up and 8-max tables (NLH only) are also available. 

Blinds start as low as $0.01/$0.02 for the tables with the smallest stakes, which players can buy into for as little as $1. The lowest buy-in poker tables are referred to as micro-stakes and this also includes games with $0.02/$0.05 and $0.05/$0.1. There are usually several tables in each micro stakes buy-in range running around the clock. Low-stakes tables with $0.1/$0.25 and $0.25/$0.5 blinds are also popular on Party Poker as are the mid-stakes games with $0.5/$1 and $1/$2 blinds.  

The action begins to thin out as the stakes get higher, but there are usually a few $2/$5 and $5/10 tables going at peak times of the day. The action doesn’t stop there either, as Party Poker also caters to high-roller cash game players with $10/$25, $25/$50 and $50/$100 tables spread in both 6-max and heads-up versions. There isn’t always much action at the upper end of the scale but there have been some notable big games in the past few years.

A unique feature of Party Poker cash games is ‘real name’ tables, where your real name will be displayed rather than your screen name. Real Name tables are available at all stake levels for No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha, but not for Omaha Hi-Lo, 6+ or fixed limit Hold’em cash games.

Party Poker also spreads fast-fold cash tables for No-Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha at a variety of stake levels. Branded as Fast-Forward, this speed version of poker is one of the more popular ways to play poker in the 21st century, where players have immediately whisked away to a new table as soon as they fold. A nice feature of the Party Poker version is an option to stay and watch the hand that you just folded play out before your new hand begins. Most sites don't offer this feature, but it's very useful, enabling you to see how opponents play out their hands.

Party Poker cash games also offer a degree of player protection, as player names are not displayed until players sit into cash games, preventing bum-hunting and other predatory behaviour.

Party Poker Multi-Table Tournaments

Party Poker’s Daily Legends tournament schedule recently underwent a revamp, focusing on the most popular formats, including more turbo and hyper-turbo MTTS, plus an increased range of micro stakes events. In addition to these, there are also Super Daily Legends, which are the tournaments with the biggest guarantees of the day, taking place at 7 pm and midnight (UK time) every night, with extra tournaments scheduled on Sundays.

Like most poker sites, the weekend is when the action hots up and Party Poker’s new schedule includes The Party Poker Big Weekend, a series of 4 tournaments across Saturday and Sunday, with the largest guarantees of the week at each buy-in level. The schedule for these events is as follows:

• The Big Saturday, at 18.05 has a $215 buy-in and a $30k guarantee
• The Grand, a high roller at 17.05 (Sunday) has a $1,050 buy-in and a $75k guarantee
• The Sunday Carnival, at 19.05 has a $22 buy-in and a $50,000 guarantee
• The Sunday Party, also at 19.05 has a $109 buy-in and whopping $150k guarantee

The Sunday Carnival and Sunday Party tournaments are PKO format, with half the buy-in going towards the main prize pool and the other half for bounties, awarded every time a player is knocked out.

The Big Saturday and the Grand are both phase tournaments with the Grand being a real-name event. Phase tournaments enable players to work their way to the final day of the tournament via a series of lower-priced starting ‘flights’ that take place throughout the week. 

Overall there seems to be a lot of MTT provision on Party Poker, with dozens of tournaments taking place every hour. Most have late registration, so there are usually at least 20 open tournaments available to join at any one time and a lot more at peak times of the day.

There is also a good provision of satellites for most MTTs, enabling players to take a shot at qualifying for a bigger buy-in tournament than they can usually afford to play.

Party Poker also runs several online series. The flagship series is Powerfest which runs up to three times a year, with prize pools as big as $500k. Other online series and major events include the Grand Prix and Millions, which are brands that have also been used for Party Poker Live events.

Party Poker Spins

Spins are the jackpot sit-and-go-to format, offered on party poker. Like most other versions of this popular poker variant, the tables are 3-handed, the games are fast-paced and the prizes are randomised, with the biggest as much as 50,000 x the buy-in! The $20 buy-in version has a cool $1m as the top prize. While it’s much more likely that you’ll be playing for a prize of $40 or $60, on rare occasions the huge multipliers will be hit and life-changing amounts can be won. 

Party Poker Sit & Go Tournaments

Regular sit & go poker is not as popular as it used to be due to the rise of the jackpot, 3-handed sit & go version, however, party poker still has some rather unique offerings for fans of the format. 

Fans of on-demand single-table tournament poker can find 6-handed, 8-handed and heads-up versions available with buy-ins ranging from $1 to $1k. Games are available with regular, turbo and hyper-turbo blinds structures including rare-to-find double or nothing tables. Ironically it is actually impossible to double up, as the tournament fees deducted from the buy-ins mean that the prizes awarded are actually slightly less than double the cost to enter.

Party Poker Live Events

Live events were once the centrepiece of party poker’s offering, however currently they do not feature on the site and the future of Party Live as a main product line is uncertain. Their live events had a huge following and as recently as 2018, Party Live overtook (albeit briefly) PokerStars as the most successful live poker operator in Europe. While it’s unlikely that the all-singing all-dancing glory days will return, it would be no surprise to see the likes of the Party Poker Million and the Party Poker Grand Prix on live poker schedules again in the near future. If they do, players can expect a wide range of online qualifying satellites into these events on Party Poker.

Party Poker Community/Ambassadors

Party Poker used to have many famous poker ambassadors, such as John Duthie and Patrik Leonard, but the current roster of poker-playing representatives have now been whittled down to just two, the Twitch streaming Staples brothers, Matt and Jaime. The likeable Canadian pair are amongst the most successful poker streamers on the platform with over 100k followers each. They stream their online poker action from Party Poker’s online tables several times a week. If and when party poker live events make a return, the Staples brothers would almost certainly be in attendance, as both have a great love for live poker as well as being online pros.

Party Poker Lobby and Gameplay Features

Party Poker’s software is developed in-house and has undergone several changes and upgrades over the years. The current iteration has been in use since 2019 and has a strong recreational player focus, with a number of features that are designed to enhance the playing experience and some that nurture players to become better at the game.

The main lobby has a very detailed filtering system for both cash games and MTTS. As the MTT schedule is very busy on Party Poker, using these filters is essential for anyone looking for specific game types.  Specific tournament lobbies include pretty much all the data you need to know, including info that is rarely provided on other sites, such as how long you have to act when it is your turn to play.

On the tables, players have both emojis and throwables in addition to chat, providing a fully comprehensive range of ways to communicate with, joke with, deride and congratulate your opponents. Rabbit hunting is also now available, where you can peek at the cards that would have been dealt if the hand had continued further. 

While throwables can be fun, it can also be annoying when there is someone on the table overusing it, so Party has developed a neat way of dealing with this. In order to use a throwable, or to rabbit hunt, you have to use diamonds, which are awarded to you gradually as you play. This limits use of these features, as the diamonds are awarded slowly. 

The settings section does enable players to turn off these features completely, so if you want less fun and a more serious approach to the game, that is also possible on Party Poker.

Players can also make notes on their opponents, including colour coding to identify different player types. If there’s a loose fish or a strong pro that you’ve played against before, you can easily identify them when you meet them at another table.

Party Poker does not allow third-party tracking software, so you can play safe with the knowledge that you are playing on a level playing field. However, players are encouraged to improve their gameplay via a feature called MyGame, which includes a poker coach bot called “Whizz,” who analyses your play in real time. It advises when you’ve made a bad play, congratulates you on good plays and encourages you to analyse your play in more detail.

A feature that is unique to Party Poker is the real names tables. At some cash games and in some tournament series, your real name is displayed instead of your screen name, but these tables are optional, so players are not forced to relinquish their anonymity.

Party Poker Traffic 

While Party Poker is no longer one of the largest online poker sites, it sits just outside the top ten, with traffic levels similar to but slightly higher than 888 Poker and Unibet. Typically there are in the region of 800-900 concurrent cash game players, with over 1000 at peak times. 

At the bottom of the Party Poker client (desktop and app versions), there is a player counter, showing the number of players logged in and the number of active tables. The number of players logged in on a typical weekday afternoon is in the  4,000-5,000 range, rising to over 10,000 players during peak evening hours.

The busiest weekly tournaments attract 1,500 entrants with many of the daily tournaments mustering 200-500 participants. 

Party Poker Rake and Fees

Overall, rake and fees on Party Poker are more or less what you would expect and very similar to those on other sites. 

Cash Games: Rake in cash games are not the cheapest in the industry, but also not the most expensive. When compared to other major sites Party appears to have a similar or marginally higher rake at most of the lower buy-in levels, offering industry-best rates only for some of the higher-stakes cash tables. However, when you factor in the loyalty program, even unboosted players get at least 25% of it returned via cash back. 

MTTs: MTT fees are fairly standard on Party Poker, like most sites you can expect to pay around 10% fees on buy-ins up to $50 with slightly smaller percentages for higher buy-in tournaments.

Sit & Go fees: Sit and Go fees vary depending on the number of players at the table and the speed of the blinds, ranging from 3% - 10%. Heads-up and hyper-turbo formats have the lowest fees.

Spins: Fees for Spins are less obvious as the prizes are randomised but the deduction for this format on Party Poker ranges from 6-8%.

Party Poker  Online Poker User Experience 

Party Poker is available as a desktop download client for Windows PCs and Mac and also as an app for both Android and iOS, which is usable on tablets/iPads and smartphones. There is however no web client, so Party Poker cannot be played simply from a browser. 

The full product range is available on both the download and app versions of Party Poker, with no missing formats. Although the navigation and layout are significantly different on the app compared with the desktop download client, all the same bells and whistles do appear in each. 

The layout of the desktop version is similar to many other poker sites, with large buttons laid out horizontally at the top, for easy navigation to the various game lobbies. 

Overall the player experience is good on Party Poker, however, some of the sound effects are a bit grating, such as the cash register chime at the end of every pot, which blends quite harshly with the scraping noise of chips being pushed to the winning players. The settings for controlling which sounds are played would benefit from greater options on which elements to silence, as the only way to stop the more annoying noises is to mute all sounds.

Party Poker Mobile Poker 

The Party Poker app is used for both mobile and iPads/tablets and is available for download in both the iOS app store and for Android in the Google Play Store.

On the mobile poker app version, tables are only available in portrait mode, which is perfect for use on a phone. However, a landscape option for the app would be a welcome addition, especially for tablet/iPad users, as the device needs to be held in portrait mode to play, which isn’t always practical, especially if you use it with a keyboard.

Graphically the app and download versions use the same visual assets, however the layout on the app is optimised for mobile use and therefore it feels quite different to play on. The positioning of the betting buttons is at first a little confusing, with the raise button placed in between the fold and call buttons rather than on the right-hand side. The app’s bet slider is vertical rather than horizontal and takes a little bit of getting used to, but once familiar with the layout, is very easy to use.

Throwables are also accessed differently on the app. While on the desktop version, you first choose the item you want to throw and then select your victim, on the app, it's the other way round.

Deposit and Withdrawal Methods at Party Poker

Depositing methods for UK players at Party Poker include debit cards (Visa, Maestro & Mastercard), e-wallets (Paypal, Skrill & Neteller) and prepaid cards (LuxonPay and PaysafeCard). Apple Pay and Google Pay are also accepted. The minimum deposit for most payment methods is £10, there are no fees and deposits are available to use on the site instantly. Players can use up to 3 different active payment methods at any one time.

Please note that since 2020, due to a change in the law, UK players cannot use credit cards to fund gambling (or poker) accounts.

Party Poker conducts its own review of every withdrawal made (which can take up to two days) before it is sent for processing. The length of time it then takes to reach you depends on the withdrawal method being used, which in most cases is 2-4 days. Overall, you can usually expect to receive withdrawn funds within 4-7 working days, which is on the slow side for the online poker industry. Withdrawals must be made to the same payment methods used to make deposits.