Why 888 Poker?

As of 2011, the webcam poker market is very small. Only two sites with webcam poker make Pokerscout’s list of poker site traffic. These are 888 Poker, which is fifth on the list, and Pokerview (part of the Everleaf network), which clocks in at 26th. That means all the other poker sites that offer webcam poker are very small and insignificant.

There are some things to consider when figuring out which poker site to join. Here is how 888 stacks up.

Traffic – 888 is the fifth most popular poker room in the world and the webcam tables are network wide. The peak traffic time is the European evening, but webcam poker games run around the clock every day of the year.

Reputation and Financial Security - 888 Poker is a subsidiary of 888 Holdings, a publicly traded company, which was founded in 1997. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been any sort of cheating scandal, solvency problems, legal issues, security issues or anything else that has plagued many other online poker sites. A gambling watchdog does criticize 888 and Pacific Poker (an older incarnation of the poker room) for engaging in unethical marketing practices. I certainly don’t support spam, but it doesn’t affect the safety of your money. It also seems that 888 has stopped the practice, whilst 888′s only major competitor has continued to spam blogs all over the place.

Software – 888 Poker has downloadable software that is compatible with Windows. For those using Macs or Linux, there is an instant play option that launches from your web browser. It won’t be as fast as the normal software, but you can still play a few tables at once. The webcam tables will automatically detect your webcam and microphone eliminating the need for any setup. Below is a preview of the software and a brief guide to finding webcam poker tables.

Game Selection - For normal poker 888 has a wide range of games and stakes available as the 5th most visited poker room in the world. Webcam poker is a small niche, so most of the games are from the .02/.04 to .10/.20 games. Sometimes slightly higher stakes run, but for the most part the games are good. As you can see from this screen shot, the games are very soft, with 50+% of players to the flop on most tables. This means that playing a simple tight aggressive poker strategy will be very rewarding.

VIP Program – 888 Poker doesn’t offer rakeback, but it does offer a VIP program that rewards points based on how much is raked. I’ll be completely honest, unless you are playing .50/1.00 games or higher you are unlikely to get more than 10% of your rake back in cash. If you are a hardcore poker player who plays many tables at once and plays several times a week, you could get over 35% of the rake you pay back in cash. Having a poor VIP program is not good, but if you are looking to play webcam poker, have some fun and win a few bucks, it shouldn’t matter much.

The take away from this review is that 888 Poker is not the best poker site on the market, but it is safe, popular, functional and offers the best real money webcam poker poker experience on the internet. Check out the official site here.