888poker

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888poker at a glance

888poker is one of the older names in online poker, and it has kept a fairly simple pitch: a poker room first, with a small set of game types done well rather than a sprawling lobby. The site lists its games as Texas Hold'em, Omaha, BLAST, SNAP and more, and its tournaments as MTT, Mystery Bounty, Progressive Knockout, Multi Flight and more¹. If you have played on any major room before, the layout will feel familiar.

The operator runs the room through a company that also handles the money side. Payments are processed by Virtual Global Digital Services Limited, which is the name that appears on your credit card statement rather than 888poker itself². That matters practically: if you are checking a card statement for a deposit you made, look for that name, not the brand.

Two things are worth knowing before you sign up. First, the room is not open to everyone. People in countries the operator does not service cannot open an account, deposit or use the services at all, and access from those countries is blocked. The list can change with immediate effect³. Second, there is a separate restriction for Gibraltar: neither Gibraltarians nor residents of Gibraltar may download the software or use the services⁴.

For players in Asia, the practical picture is that 888poker is a global room rather than a locally licensed one in most of the region. Whether you can legally play from where you sit is a separate question from whether the room will take you, and the availability table above sets out the position for Cambodia, Macau and Vietnam.

Games offered: Texas Hold'em, Omaha, BLAST and SNAP

The core of the room is no-limit Texas Hold'em and Omaha, in cash games and tournaments. Hold'em is the game most people mean when they say poker: two hole cards each, five community cards, best five-card hand wins. Omaha works the same way except you get four hole cards and must use exactly two of them plus three from the board⁵. If you have only played Hold'em, Omaha is a bigger adjustment than it looks, because the nuts change far more often.

BLAST and SNAP are the two fast formats.

• BLAST is a short-handed sit-and-go with a randomly multiplied prize pool. You buy in, the multiplier is drawn, and the tournament runs until one player has all the chips. It suits players who want a result in a few minutes rather than a few hours.
• SNAP is the fast-fold cash game. You are dealt a hand, and if you fold you are moved straight to a new table with a new hand. You never wait for the blinds to come round, so you see far more hands per hour than in a normal cash game.

Both are listed on the site as game types alongside Hold'em and Omaha¹. One practical limit applies to mobile: on a phone or tablet you can only play one poker game or tournament at a time². If you want to run several tables, you need the desktop client.

The desktop client has its own requirements. The download version needs 760 MB of RAM³, and the live casino side of the software lists Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or higher, a 256 kbps connection, and a browser from Internet Explorer 8.0 or a later Chrome, Safari or Firefox². Those are old floors rather than recommendations, but they tell you the software is not demanding.

The operator makes its money in one of two ways: a commission known as a rake, calculated under the house rules, on cash games, or a percentage of the buy-in fee on tournaments². There is no separate charge to sit down.

Tournament types: MTT, Mystery Bounty, Progressive Knockout and Multi Flight

The tournament lobby is where 888poker puts most of its variety. The site lists four headline formats¹:

• MTT (multi-table tournament). The standard format. Everyone starts with the same stack, blinds rise on a schedule, and the field plays down to a winner. Fields can run from a few dozen to several thousand.
• Mystery Bounty. A knockout tournament where the money on each player's head is not fixed. The tournament runs in two phases, an initial phase and a final phase⁶. Bounties are drawn from a pool, so eliminating an opponent can pay far more, or far less, than the average.
• Progressive Knockout (PKO). Half of each bounty is paid to you in cash when you eliminate a player, and half is added to your own bounty. Your head becomes worth more the more players you knock out.
• Multi Flight. The same tournament runs several starting days. You can enter more than one Day 1, and all the stacks that qualify are merged and carried into Day 2⁶. It is a way to buy a bigger stack for the later stages, at the cost of more than one buy-in.

If you are new to the format, Mystery Bounty is the one to read up on first, because the payout structure is not obvious from the buy-in. The two-phase structure means the early levels play like a normal tournament and the bounty phase changes the math later on⁶.

Tournament buy-ins are charged with a percentage of the buy-in taken as the fee², so a tournament advertised at a given price includes the operator's cut. Cash games take a rake instead.

Currencies you can play in: £, $ and €

888poker accounts are held in pounds, dollars or euros¹. You pick one when you open the account, and your balance, buy-ins and winnings are shown in that currency.

If you deposit in a currency other than US dollars, the amount is converted. The rate used is comparable with daily commercial rates offered by banks and credit card companies⁴, or the current prevailing rate for the transaction type with a possible margin comparable with commercial bank and card rates³. In plain terms, you get a rate in the normal bank range rather than a punitive one, but it is still a conversion and it is not free.

The conversion is also rounded. Amounts in currencies other than US dollars may be rounded up or down when converted to or from US dollars. The operator's own example: a 10 EUR deposit converted at 13.61 USD is credited as 14.00 USD³. So the figure that lands in your balance can differ slightly from the figure you sent.

One more currency rule is worth knowing if you ever play with bonus funds. Winnings from wagering casino games with restricted funds are capped, depending on your account currency, at up to $100/€100/£100 if you have not made a real money deposit, and up to $500/€500/£500 if you have². That cap applies to restricted funds, not to your own deposited money.

Payment methods: PayPal, Skrill, Visa, MasterCard and Wire Transfer

The site lists its payment options as PayPal, Skrill, Visa, MasterCard, Wire Transfer and more¹. That is a wider set than most poker rooms carry, and it covers the two things players in Asia usually ask about first: an e-wallet and a card.

Deposits. There is no operator fee on any deposit method, though some banks charge their own fees³. You can also set your own maximum deposit amount and change it at any time through the Member Support Team live chat or the cashier⁷. That limit applies only to the account on this website, not to any other site owned or operated by the same company, though it can be applied across all your accounts via live chat⁷.

Withdrawals. The operator tries to return money using the same payment method you used to deposit, wherever possible, or another method it reasonably selects³. That is the standard approach and it is worth planning around: if you deposit by one method and want to withdraw by another, you may not be able to.

Cards. Visa and MasterCard are both listed¹. One caution from the wider 888 group: 888casino states it is not permitted to pay withdrawals to MasterCard and/or Eurocard credit or debit cards, and that such deposits do not count toward the member transaction balance⁸. If you plan to deposit by MasterCard, check the current withdrawal position for your card type before you put in a large amount, because getting the money back out may not follow the same route.

Wire transfer. Wire transfer is listed among the options¹. Bank transfer is generally the route used for larger transactions⁹. Note that the operator does not accept cash deposits and does not provide cash withdrawals⁴, so everything moves electronically.

Skrill and PayPal. Both are listed¹. E-wallets are the usual choice for players who want to keep card details off a gambling site, and they typically clear faster than a bank transfer.

What the review does not cover

A few things sit outside this page, and it is worth being clear about them so you do not read more into it than is there.

This is not a bonus review. The room runs promotions, including a new-player offer that is only valid for people who do not already have an existing or previous 888poker account¹⁰, and a free-play promotion available from the 888poker.com versions only¹⁰. Terms change often, so check the current offer on the site rather than relying on any summary.

This is not a software review. The client runs on desktop and mobile, and the mobile version limits you to one table at a time². Beyond that, how the lobby, the table graphics and the note-taking tools feel is a matter of taste.

This is not a full rules page. The operator publishes a list of permitted aids for poker games, which includes basic game statistics tools, basic advice tools such as opening hand charts, tracking software for your own table information, and experience-improving tools that do not influence the game or give advice³. Prohibited tools include AI-endowed software, collusion tools, player-identity game selection tools, sites sharing other players' statistics or earnings, seat-finding or auto-seating programs, real-time advice tools, and tools acting on a player's behalf³. If you use tracking or HUD software, read that list before you sit down.

This is not a country-by-country legal guide. The availability table above covers Cambodia, Macau and Vietnam. If you are in one of those countries, the relevant page is linked there. For a sense of how 888poker compares with other rooms that take players from the region, see our reviews of GGPoker, PokerStars, PartyPoker, Natural8 and CoinPoker.

Finally, this page does not cover the group's other products. 888 also runs a casino and a sportsbook under separate brands, with their own terms, and the poker room's rules are not the same as theirs. If you want the casino side, see our 888casino review, and for the sportsbook, our 888sport review.