Key Tournaments
Paddy Power Poker is the home of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious live poker tournaments, the Irish Open. The firm offer their customers a number of different Multi Table Tournament and Sit’N’Go satellites for the event and also offer routes to the World Series of Poker, World Poker Tour, European Poker Tour and Aussie Millions.
Aside from these qualifiers, Paddy Power Poker also has huge ‘Guaranteed’ tournaments and plenty of freerolls for players of varying abilities.
Game Variety
The standard array of poker variants – Hold’em (No Limit, Pot Limit and Limit) and Omaha (PLO and Hi-Lo) are well represented. For a low stakes Omaha player looking to hone his skills, the lack of a 0.10/20c heads-up table is a slight grievance. Although 7 Card and 5 Card Stud are available, they attract virtually no players. Tournament play is where Betfred really excels in terms of diversity.
For the low and mid stakes player, there are regular $5, $10 and $20 freeze outs and re-buys, with fields rarely topping 750 players, meaning a more realistic chance of a cash. There are numerous satellites running to live APT, EPT and WSOP events, as well as independent events such as the Irish Winter Festival, with steps starting from as little as $2.
The biggest carrot of PaddyPower poker game selection is the availability of 'Asian games', including Chinese Poker, Beat the Landlord and Big Two. Due to the sick swings and originality, Chinese Poker is becoming very popular. It's one of the set games at Bobby's Room at the Bellagio, with the likes of Phil Ivey, Eli Elezra and Phil Hellmuth all great fans of the game.
Traffic
The traffic at this site was somewhat surprising and really growing. Of course the low level games have the most traffic but even at mid-stakes there's enough traffic that a player could expect action. During peak hours the total real money traffic can be 9000 players and sometimes upwards of 10,000 players.
Rake
Expect 5% rake in ring games as a kind of starting point, which is pretty standard, although rake percentages are never perfect because of rounding and cutoff points with pots. At the high limits do not expect rake percentages to be very high AT ALL, at least if there is any action at the table. Our site staff monitored a $10/$20 table that had very aggressive betting. While 5% rake was collected, Paddy Power capped that at $3. In one pot, nearly $1000 was up for grabs but rake was only at $3 still. That's a rake percentage of 0.3%!
Sit 'n' go rake (or the site's fee) percentages depend on the level you play. They actually have $5000 + $200 Sit 'n' go rake tournaments at this site which is only 4% rake. At the microlimits you can pay 20% rake on $0.10 + $.02 tournaments if you bother but everything at the $1 Sit 'n' go level is 10%.
Competition
Paddy Power Poker is attracting more and more players and with that comes tougher competition. However, flop percentages do suggest a fair amount of loose playing donkeys with some tables showing that 80% of all players are making it to fourth street. There are sites with weaker competition than Paddy Power Poker as these guys appear to be starting to attract a good base of patrons but if you look at table stats, which are displayed in the lobby, you should be able to find some noobs to shark.
Support
The support for this site was live and very fast in answering questions. The link to live help can be found at the home page and then toward the bottom of the page where the contact information is.
Deposit & Withdrawal Options
Deposit options: (1) Credit card, (2) debit cards, (3) checks, (4) bank transfer,
(5) Netteller, (6) moneybookers
Withdrawal options: (1) Credit card (2) checks (3) NETeller
Bonus Details
Bonus Summary
Sign up and get a whopping 200% bonus on any deposits up to $2000.
Signup Bonus
Paddy Power Poker are giving you a huge 200% bonus on your first deposit, up to $2000 - so if you deposit $667 you could receive up to $2,000 for FREE. Plus, the minimum deposit is only €/£5! Every time you play for real money on their site you earn Paddy Points and the more you play, the more points you earn. For every 600 points you earn, part of your sign up bonus will be released in increments of $10:
Bonus Payout Release
200% to a maximum of $2000
Reload bonuses
None.
