Betfair Poker Review

Review last updated on March 23, 2023

Betfair, a respected name in the online gaming world, has an online casino, sports betting, and poker operations. All are known for their integrity and honest operation, which comes with the Betfair name. The poker room, however, is of note.

Betfair Poker offers mainly Texas Holdem and Omaha games, two of today's most popular poker varieties. While these games are complex and can be hard to follow, new players don't have to worry about losing their shirt. Betfair's "sit and go" tournament tables are a great place to learn the game.

These are single-table tournaments, some with buy-ins as low as $2.75. The game begins as soon as one of these tables has enough players. Each player gets the same number of chips, and the object is to be last player with money in his hand. Your total exposure is limited to the actual buy-in.

As you progress in skill, you can try the bigger multi-table tournaments. These are the real powerhouses of the online poker world, and can have thousands of players on hundreds of tables at the same time. The buy-in can be correspondingly large, up to $10,000, but so can the prizes. It's not unusual to find professional players at these tournaments.

Betfair Poker is an excellent poker room and definitely continues the good name started by the Casino and Sportsbook operations.

Games

In years gone by, the Betfair Poker software platform received much criticism about its functionality and the difficulty of playing multiple tables. Thankfully the site underwent a major overhaul in 2007 but there are still some problems and this is one of the reasons why some players opt to stay away from Betfair. The most immediate thing one will notice about the site is the lobby and that this looks almost a bit too simple or outdated as the graphics are fairly basic. As for the table graphics, Betfair doesn't offer any visual bell and whistles such as avatars. However, a cleaner, more streamlined site means fewer distractions and the ability to focus on the game at hand.

This bare-bone style will appeal to certain types of poker players. Having said all of the above, there are some nice qualities to the site that shouldn't be dismissed. Betfair is not a member of a larger poker network and thanks to this independence, there are a few unique features found in the Betfair Poker site that set it apart from the others. For instance, it is possible to re-size the poker tables independently. This is an extremely useful feature when playing multiple tables at the same time and is, unfortunately, not something that is offered by all poker rooms. If you are seated at either a cash table or tournament table you can view your stats such as the percentage of hands that you won at each stage of the hand. There is also a handy notes taking feature and hand history feature.

Games & Payouts Percentages

Betfair Poker is an independent online poker room and as a result does not have as many players as some of the largest sites. At peak times, the number of seated cash-game players can exceed 1000, which is still fairly respectable. So you can see that there is still a sufficiently high level of traffic to ensure that you will find most games and variations at stakes to suit your bankroll. Most players are European and games at Betfair Poker are renowned to be quite loose and soft meaning, in other words, 'lucrative'. This is probably because the Betfair sportsbook is huge and there are many sports bettors wanting to try their hand at poker. Thus Betfair Poker is a good option for more skilled poker players.

Sit-n-go tables, no matter the level, are always popular and well-attended around the clock. Buy-ins for single-table tournaments begin at $2.75. There are also plenty of multi-table tournaments with massive guaranteed prize pools. You can also enter various qualifying events at Betfair Poker for several major land-based poker events, such as the World Series of Poker, World Series of Poker Europe, Aussie Millions and the European Poker Tour. Betfair Poker offers Texas Hold'em, Omaha Hi, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven-Card Stud Hi, and Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo. The favorite at Betfair, however, is no limit or limit Texas Holdem. There is typically less action unfortunately at the Omaha and Seven Card Stud tables for small and medium stake players. So players who are looking to play Omaha Hi/Lo or Seven Card Stud should consider skipping playing at Betfair Poker as they do not spread these games. Betfair also offers its players Blackjack within the poker portal and is surprisingly popular - perhaps for players looking for some light distraction.

Banking

As a result of being one of the largest online sportsbooks, Betfair offers excellent financial security and encryption matching industry standards. Deposit methods are based on the region from which you are playing and include all major credit cards, bank transfers, cheques and a variety of third-party processors such as NETeller, PayPal and ClickAndBuy.

Support

Betfair has a fully searchable Frequently Asked Questions section which is the first thing you should check in case you need assistance. However, if this does not answer your question, there is 24 hour customer service support. You may either send an email (which Betfair will attempt to answer in less than four hours) or call the help desk. So, Betfair's customer service is readily accessible. Unfortunately, live chat is still not an option at Betfair.