Bwin Poker Review

Top Rated Sportsbook Also Offers Excellent Online Poker Experience

Bwin has been one the largest online sports betting operations since their inception back in 1997. Originally called Bet To Win, the name become abbreviated to simply Bwin in 2006 and remains one of the most popular and respected brands in the business, with over a million active members.

So early on, back in the dawn of online poker in fact, it occurred to the folks at Bwin that some of their sports bettors might be interested in playing online poker as well, so in 1999 they started Bwin Poker. This was before any of the popular poker rooms of today started out, and they became a trend setter as the game caught on in popularity.

They were also the first online poker operation to go public, all the way back in 2000, having their company listed on the London Stock exchange. They report not just to a small group of people living in some obscure location like just about every other poker room, and instead are responsible to shareholders and must abide by the rules of the stock exchange.

So you’re dealing with a totally legitimate company when you deal with Bwin, which is a huge deal, especially these days with poker sites being shut down left and right and their people even being accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in players’ funds. By the way you’ll never see me recommending any of these lesser managed poker rooms here on this site, and in fact I’ve stayed away from recommending them throughout the years since the way they were set up already set off alarms for me. They were problems just waiting to happen.

So while you can be confident that all of the poker rooms that I recommend are well run and trustworthy, I’ve got a special place in my heart for publicly run poker companies, since everything is completely above board and out in the open. Bwin is among the select few that run their businesses in this fashion, so I definitely want to give them props and point this out to you, as at the very least a nice additional measure of trustworthiness and security.

As a matter of fact, the two main publicly run poker sites recently merged, with Bwin joining forces with Party Gaming to form Bwin Party. So this makes the company behind Bwin Poker even more solid, and in fact this merger resulted in significant improvements to both companies, and there’s no doubt in my mind that this was a very wise decision on both their parts.

Bwin’s Ratio of Gamblers To Poker Players Is Second To None

What really stands out for me here is the fact that, while some other poker rooms get a lot of their players from other parts of their operation, like casinos and sports bettors, none have the percentage of gamblers at their poker site that Bwin Poker does. As poker players, what we really want to look for is two main things, which are the percentage of bad players, or fish, at a poker site, and the extent of their bad play, or fishiness.

In other words, what the savvy poker player looks for is a lot of weaker players, and not only that, it’s even more important that a poker site not only has a lot of losers but a lot of big losers as well, the kind that are willing to drop larger amounts there. So at some sites, a lot of them in fact, the bad players aren’t really that bad, and they are pretty much relegated to the lower stakes. So while you may be able to kick some real butt at the small stakes, once you move up you tend to run into a lot more real poker players, and you will soon meet your match.

So what we really want is a poker site where there are plenty of bad players at all stakes, including the high ones. This requires the poker site to essentially be based upon a non poker culture. What I mean by a poker culture is a poker site attracting new poker players, where they start out at the small stakes and then as they improve they move up. So the higher you move up yourself, the stronger the competition, and the tougher it is to beat the games and win.

Now this phenomenon even has players who are good enough to play for a living afraid to move beyond the mid stakes at some poker sites, and we’re talking professionals here, so they end up playing a huge amount of tables at their stake rather than less at a higher one. However, even top players like myself, who can beat these higher stakes without much trouble, still would obviously prefer playing against weaker competition at these stakes, simply because more winning can be accomplished.

So with poker sites that are non-poker culture based, they get the majority of their players from other forms of gambling. For instance, with their massive sports betting player base, the players at the poker room come not from looking to market their site to poker players, but from sports bettors wandering over and sitting down at the poker tables. They do not spend a lot of time studying the game, they aren’t familiar with all of the latest poker theory and strategy, in fact the game that they know about is sports betting, and they are dabbling in poker on the side merely as a form of entertainment.

So Bwin Poker doesn’t have to market to poker players since they have over a million sports bettors to interest in poker, so there’s no need. So this really benefits them as they can save a huge amount in marketing costs, and from someone in the business I can tell you that some poker rooms spend a huge investment on this. In terms of the benefits to players, they can take these savings and focus on the poker room experience of their players and look to spend a lot more on things like promotions and rewards to keep their players happier, which is a great thing for us of course.

Much more importantly for us though, this process once again has us up against much weaker competition than at the poker sites which look to attract poker players. Simply put, if poker is a player’s main game, then he or she will be much better at it than if a player takes a much more casual approach to the game and only plays a little on the side, and is just looking for a little extra fun.

Bwin Poker Also Offers Great Traffic As Well

If a poker site is overrun with a ton of good players who are skilled enough to play 16 or 24 tables at a time, and play well to make a living, well even though I can beat these people, that’s not for me, and it’s not for you either. This is one of the big reasons why you don’t see me recommending these rooms to you, and a lot of my recommendations are in fact little diamonds in the rough so to speak. Bwin Poker though, in comparison, is one of the few sites which are big diamonds in the rough.

Once again, due to their very limited marketing to the poker world, most real poker players don’t even consider them as an option, and many haven’t even ever heard of Bwin Poker to be honest. That’s great though, as these are the players that we’d rather keep out, at least in masses. Now you and I are poker players and we certainly want to take advantage of these unique opportunities to increase our poker winnings, but if too many of us get this idea, then the poker site might be overrun with sharks and the ratio of good players to bad might go down.

The beautiful thing about Bwin Poker is that there’s no real risk of this ever happening, and the reason is once again that it is a huge sports betting site with a relatively small poker room in comparison, and they don’t need to spend the millions that other large poker sites do in advertising to poker players. This will serve to keep most poker players in the dark about them, although in reading this review you will no longer be among them and will come to appreciate the benefits of a poker site like this.

While Bwin Poker certainly is small compared to the amount of people who bet on sports with them, it isn’t small at all compared to other poker rooms, and their poker room is among the largest in the world. While they don’t have the huge player base of a Poker Stars, no one else these days does either, and I’m pretty sure that you feel the same way as I do about playing against experts versus fish. I’d much rather play against the fish, since my bank account grows much faster. In the end that’s what it’s all about really. In your case it might even be a matter of stopping it from going down, which makes this decision even more important.

So there’s lots of action at Bwin Poker, but as I’ve been saying, it’s much more about the quality of the traffic than the quantity. Bwin Poker has both in very generous amounts, and is among the very best out there, if not the best, in this extremely important measure. In terms of practical purposes, there’s lots of games running at any time of the day or night, and the games are the soft ones that we prefer, or at least should prefer. That’s exactly what we are looking for in a poker room.

Bwin Poker First Depositors Bonus

To welcome you to their poker site and to also provide you with a nice incentive just to try them out, Bwin Poker will be doubling your initial deposit, up to an additional $500 free bonus. Then, as you play there, they release your bonus part to you every time you earn enough points to receive $10 of it. This continues until you’ve collected the entire amount, which really doesn’t require a lot of effort. However, they are paying you to try them out, so you’re expected to give them at least a fair shot before you get paid all of the bonus they are willing to give you.

Not everyone of course has the $500 to start out with to get the maximum bonus, and if you don’t, that’s fine, just put in what you have and get that doubled up. To make it easier for you, Bwin Poker has split their bonus offers into three separate packages. All of them end up matching your deposit and thus doubling your deposit, but in addition to the 100% match up to an additional $500 that we just spoke about, they also have 100% match up to an additional $250, and 100% match up to an extra $100.

Now these offers may look similar, but the great thing is that with these smaller maximums, Bwin Poker has made it even easier for you to collect the smaller amounts, by lowering the points per dollar requirement. And, unlike many offers, you don’t have to write down or remember special Bwin Poker bonus codes, as we have separate links to them according to the offer that you choose, and all you have to do is click on the corresponding link to be automatically entitled to your chosen deal.

So choosing the right one now becomes a very simple matter. If you’re depositing over $250 then you choose the up to $500 deal. If you are putting in more than $100 up to $250 then you choose the up to $250 offer. If you are going to deposit $100 or less, then pick the up to $100 deal. So once you decide how much you are going to put in, just click on the corresponding link in this review.

Bwin Poker School

The poker school at Bwin isn’t as good as you see at some poker sites, although that’s not really a bad thing. You don’t really want poker sites looking to educate their players too much, and if you’re really looking for some top notch poker lessons, you’re far better off getting a subscription to one of the better video poker sites than looking to learn anything of any real value at the poker schools of any online poker site.

Bwin’s Poker School really just covers the basics, to get their players knowledgeable enough so they can sit down at a table and play. That’s all you really want to see happen actually, and this makes it much more likely that we will keep the real poker skills to ourselves rather than having our poker room share too many with their run of the mill players. This is particularly important given that so many casual players play poker at Bwin. So while Bwin’s poker school is far from exciting, that’s a good thing actually.

Bwin Customer Support

Bwin has many years of experience dealing with a lot of players, and they have maintained their huge player database all through these years, so that tells you something big right there as far as how well they take care of their players. Especially in the highly competitive business of sports betting, where there really isn’t a lot of difference between betting sites as far as the odds that are offered go, it really comes down to the level of service one site provides over another.

So it’s no surprise really that given that Bwin is one of the largest sports betting operations in the world, their customer support and service is world class as well. This dedication spills over to the poker side of the business as well, and they are committed to ensuring that every player is taken care of as they feel they should be.

Bwin Poker Software

Some poker sites don’t spend enough on their software, and this isn’t something that they can hide. Although most poker sited do pretty decently in this regard, and it isn’t a real big issue anyway, as there are several factors that go into deciding which online poker rooms to play at that are far more important, it’s obvious that Bwin Poker has plenty of prizes to throw around at everything, including their software. The graphics are excellent as is the functionality and game play. The software here is among the best out there in fact.

Bwin Poker Rewards Program

At Bwin Poker, your welcome bonus is just the start. Once you’ve tried them out and come to the easy conclusion that this is certainly one of the best online poker rooms around, they continue to reward you for your play there and your loyalty by awarding you Market Points. In fact, they start you out with 1000 market points even before you play your first hand with them, to give you a running start on taking advantage of the great rewards they will be offering you.

Then, each time you play a raked hand or pay a fee to enter a tournament, you collect more and more Market Points. Whenever you’re ready to cash them in, you can redeem them either for merchandise in their store, for free tournament entries, or even for cash. If you’ve read some of my other reviews, you know how much I like cash, and how much I appreciate poker sites that let you take a bonus right in your account as your reward. However what rewards you claim is perfectly up to you, but in any case you can be assured that you’ll be receiving some nice goodies just to thank you for playing poker at Bwin.

Bwin Poker Special Tournaments And Promotions

There’s way too many things going on at Bwin Poker to even list here, and the range of special promotions and other events changes all the time, so I’ll just talk about a few of the ongoing ones that they have in store for you. Bwin Poker works hard at making sure that there’s lots of entertaining variety to the normal poker play, which in itself is exciting enough, however these additional events and promotions certainly do add some real spice and excitement to playing online poker at Bwin.

Does playing poker tournaments with a guaranteed prize excite you? How about a guaranteed prize pool of over 3 million dollars? Is that a crazy prize to be giving away in an online poker tournament? You bet it is, but Bwin Poker does indeed deliver this much excitement. Perhaps you’ve imagined yourself on TV playing side by side with some of the world’s top poker pros for multi million dollar prize pools at a World Poker Tour event. To get a shot at these and other huge tournaments at Bwin Poker, you don’t need a huge investment. Bwin Poker wants everyone to have a chance at all of their big tournaments, and even if you just have a couple of bucks to spend, they have a way that you can look to earn a seat.

If you don’t want to spend anything at all on a tournament but still want to shoot for a nice cash prize, Bwin offers twice daily $1000 freerolls where you can try your luck at and also gain some valuable experience if you’re a newer player, without even having to risk anything.

Bwin Poker also features an array of interesting and unique variations to tournament poker, and while these promotions tend to change a bit here and there, there’s always a good selection of formats which feature innovative twists to add a little more excitement to the game.

There are also several leaderboard type promotions, where you can watch yourself climb the ranks and test your skill against other players at Bwin. They even have one which pits teams from different countries and regions against one another and you compete not only for yourself but for your country as well. They even have a rookie challenge where new players compete against each other, being given free entries and the opportunity to win real prizes.

Like many poker sites, Bwin Poker also offers a refer a friend bonus, where you provide them with the names and email addresses of people that you know that may be interested in playing there. Then, with each friend that ends up trying them out, your friend not only gets the normal generous welcome bonus, they also get an extra $30 in poker bonus, and 15 free Euros to wager on sports. You also get the $30 and the 15 Euros as well, and that’s for each friend. Imagine how much you could rack up with this deal!

This is just a small sampling of the extra fun and profitable stuff that Bwin Poker constantly runs to ensure that their players are kept as entertained as possible, in addition to providing us with the opportunity to earn extra rewards. All in all, Bwin Poker’s array of ongoing promotions is second to none both in terms of variety and excitement.

Bwin’s Standard Games

As I mentioned, there’s lots going on at Bwin in terms of the standard games they offer, both in terms of variety, traffic, and stake level. Lower stake players will find plenty to choose from at their chosen game type, and there’s also a very good assortment of mid and high stake action as well, as would be expected at a poker site which is among the world’s busiest. All you need to do is check out what’s running in the lobby, click on the one you want, and grab a seat.

Once again, it’s not really about the quantity of the action, it’s about the quality. If you had to pick one or the other, it’s far better to play in profitable games, and it doesn’t matter how many unprofitable ones a poker site has running at any given time, since you don’t really want to be playing in any of them. However, ideally a poker site would have both quantity and quality, and that’s exactly what you get when you choose to play online poker at Bwin.

Bwin’s Deposit And Withdrawal Options

Very often, it is difficult to figure out what options you can deposit and withdraw at a poker site with, especially when it comes to withdrawals, where some sites don’t even tell you what you can use until after you’ve deposited with them. This to me is terrible and I want to know what’s going on before I get involved.

So at Bwin, not only do they have a very good assortment of both deposit and withdrawal methods, but they have a web page where all you do is select the country you live in from the drop down menu, along with whether you want information about deposits or withdrawals, and all of the methods are instantly displayed right in front of you, along with details about the option. It doesn’t get any better or easier than this in fact.

Bwin’s Other Forms Of Betting

In addition to poker, Bwin offers several other forms of betting, and the best thing is, you can play all of them all from the same account. Aside from their world class sports betting operation, they also offer a wide selection of other things to bet on. For instance, they offer virtual sports leagues, only these aren’t just for bragging rights, they are for prizes as well. They also offer every casino game imaginable and some you haven’t even imagined.

There are even several games of skill that you can bet and win on, where you’re not playing against the house like you do with casino games, you’re playing against other players like you do with poker, where the winner takes the prize. They also offer online bingo and backgammon for fans of those games. There’s a ton of other things besides poker here and plenty of other forms of gambling for those of us who like to venture out of the poker arena for a little extra entertainment on the side. While some other sites offer other games, no one does it like Bwin.

Summing It All Up

Bwin is a first class operation all the way, from the top notch trustworthiness and reliability, to their generous bonuses, to their swarms of fish, to their state of the art software, to their award winning customer service, to their vast number of gambling options. If you are playing at another site, then you owe it to yourself to experience Bwin first hand, to fully appreciate everything they have to offer. If you’re new to online poker, it’s hard to imagine a better poker site to start out at.

Many players start out at the wrong site and often they end up starting with some real bad experiences, so it’s extremely important that you get off on the right foot here, and Bwin Poker is certainly one of the poker sites that will have you putting yourself in the best position to succeed that you can. If you play online poker now and you’ve been less than satisfied with the results, why not give Bwin Poker a try and see what you are missing. Best of all, Bwin Poker will be paying you to try them out, and when you put that together with all of the great things about this poker site, it’s an opportunity not to be missed. Just click on the bonus of your choice and you are on your way.