WPT Poker Review

WPT Stands For World Poker Tour

Pretty much everyone is familiar with the World Poker Tour, whose series of big poker tournaments is akin to the Major League of professional poker.  The tour has been around for a number of years now, and has been very successful.  All of the events on the World Poker Tour are land based, meaning face to face live poker, as opposed to playing on the internet at a virtual poker room.  So when a name as big as the World Poker Tour gets into the online poker business, it’s a major event to be sure.  Online poker has become so popular though that it was only a matter of time, but the time has arrived.

The WPT – A Name You Know Owned By A Company You Know

So often in the world of online poker, you’re not sure who owns the company behind a lot of online poker sites.  Is it owned by a bunch of shucksters in some office in Costa Rica or somewhere, who will be more than happy paying out your winnings when the getting is good, but will take the money and run if things turn sour?  Or, perhaps they will log into games using a super account where they can see your hole cards and cheat against you?  Well these things happen in the world of online poker, and you in fact need a trusted source like us to separate the genuinely legitimate poker sites from the shady ones.

With a very few poker sites though, they are so reputable that no advice is even needed, and that’s certainly the case with WPT Poker.  Of course, the World Poker Tour is a very trusted name in the offline poker business.  When you also consider the fact that the WPT is now owned by Party Gaming PLC, the owners and operators of Party Poker, the most trusted brand in the online poker business, this only adds to its reputation.  Party Gaming is in fact a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange, and all of their business dealings are subject to its extremely high level of scrutiny, to assure that everything they do is entirely legitimate.

So who would you rather have overseeing your company?  An institution like the London Stock exchange, or a band of renegade Indians from Canada who operate outside the white man‘s laws?  This isn’t to say anything against the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, who do a fine job of monitoring a lot of online poker sites and are very fair in their decisions, but there’s no real comparison that can be made here.  The main difference is that participation in this commission is voluntary, whereas with the London Stock Exchange the company absolutely needs to comply with their strict standards or very serious consequences ensue.

This Company Truly Goes Above And Beyond

To give you an idea of the extent of the pressures for Party Gaming to comply with any and all regulations, and to be completely fair and even more than fair in all of their dealings, they agreed to pay a $300 million fine to the U.S. government for actions that were contrary to the law there.  Not only is Party Gaming not subject to U.S. law, once the UIGEA was enacted, which allegedly prohibited online poker sites doing business with its residents, Party Poker immediately ceased doing so.  The fine was in fact for breaking the law before it existed, and they willingly paid it.  Need I say more here?  Can you imagine a safer online site to have your money on deposit with?

The WPT and Party Gaming May Be The Ultimate Online Poker Partnership

So when you take a company with ethical standards somewhere in the stratosphere, and combine it with one of the biggest names poker period, the World Poker Tour, then take both and put together a great new online poker site, then you really end up with an exciting combination.  If you’ve ever had fantasies of playing an event on the World Poker Tour, perhaps even seeing yourself on TV sitting at the final table with some of the biggest names in the business, and playing for some of the biggest prizes in poker, WPT Poker has the means to make this a possibility.

Even more importantly perhaps, the WPT has years of experience running some of the best and biggest poker tournaments in the world.  You will benefit not only from this experience, but the vast experience of Party Poker, which for years was the world’s favorite online poker site, and only dropped out of the number one position when they stopped accepting U.S. players a few years ago.  They are still far and away the most popular poker site among those not accepting Americans, and most American players in fact long for the days when they were allowed to play at Party Poker.  So there’s no doubt that they really know what they are doing at Party Poker, and when you put them together with the WPT, now you’ve really got something exciting.

WPT Poker And Party Poker Is More Than Just A Partnership Though

Perhaps the best thing about WPT Poker and Party Poker being owned by the same company is the fact that they share all of their poker traffic.  So when you play at WPT Poker, you get to play against all the other players who play at WPT Poker, plus all of the players that play at the much larger Party Poker site.  Now, it’s also true that when you play at Party Poker, you get to play against those players plus all of the WPT players as well, so you might be thinking, well why don’t I just have an account at Party Poker instead?  Well if you don’t have an account at Party Poker, you definitely should get one, and we have a comprehensive review of them as well for you to check out.  The generous welcome bonuses at Party Poker alone is more than enough reason to open an account there, although that’s just the start, as you will see if you check out my review of that poker site as well.

However, why not take advantage of the deposit bonus at WPT Poker as well?  If two people want to give you free money, why would you want to choose between them when you could just take money from both of them?  It isn’t just all about bonus money though of course, and WPT Poker has the advantage of being a much more intimate poker site and setting than their much bigger cousin.  WPT Poker is a separate poker site, and having a lot fewer players can be a nice advantage.  OF course, if you’re looking to get hooked up at a WPT event, there’s no better place than WPT Poker of course.  So when you can have all the advantages of Party Poker in a much more intimate setting, it in fact doesn’t get much better than this.

WPT Poker Initial Welcome Bonus And Bonus Code

I mentioned that WPT Poker has a welcome bonus for you, and it’s up to an extra $100 in free poker money.  The amount you become entitled to is identical to the amount of your initial deposit.  So if you put in $50 the bonus you’re eligible to get is $50, and so on, up to an extra $100.  Needless to say, if it’s at all possible for you to deposit the $100 and get the maximum in bonus money from WPT Poker, you should obviously do it.  If not, well don’t worry about it, as they will still double your initial deposit amount.  To make sure that you’re entitled to the bonus, make sure that you enter the bonus code “WPTCODE.”

Once your deposit amount is set, then WPT Poker releases it in 1/10 increments.  This is a much better and easier setup than you find at almost any other poker site in fact, as they generally get you to work pretty hard to free up your bonus money, and often times the requirements are so difficult that some players don’t even end up collecting any of it.  At WPT Poker though, they want to make this pretty easy for you and they indeed do.  Not only are you a lot more likely to collect the whole thing, you get the extra money in your poker account quicker, and it’s always better to have the money in your hand rather than just waiting for it, as if it’s in your account, you can use it.  This is especially important if you’ve gone through a bit of bad luck as you can really use the extra money in that case.

So by getting it in 10 pieces instead of 4, or 2, or even 1 at some poker sites, it gets put into your account regularly, and frequently, until you get it all.  This is of course much better.  The requirements for collecting this welcome bonus is also set up to make it easier for you.  All you need is 6 times your total bonus money in WPT Points, which isn’t hard to achieve at all.  For every dollar in rake or tournament fees, 2 WPT Points are awarded.  The nice thing about the setup at WPT Poker is that this isn’t every dollar that you contribute to the rake, like many other poker sites do it.  In fact, at WPT Poker, it’s the amount that all players contribute to the rake that’s counted, and as long as you are dealt cards in a hand, even if you fold and don’t contribute to the pot at all, you still earn an equal share of WPT Points from every raked hand.  This just makes collecting your bonus money all the more easy.

The Rewards From WPT Poker Don’t Just Stop There Though

Not only are you entitled to the nice welcome bonus of up to an extra $100 that using our WPT Poker bonus code will get you, WPT Poker also offers frequent reload bonuses, where it you re-deposit during the promotion, you will be entitled to even more free poker money from them.  These extra bonus offers work the same way as the welcome bonus does, where you earn the WPT Poker Points and collect your bonus as you accumulate them.  You don’t need bonus codes from us to cash in on this extra money though, as once you’re a member of WPT Poker, they will both notify you of the offers and give you the bonus codes on their site and by email.

In between your cashing in on bonuses though, you’ll of course be earning WPT Poker Points for every hand you play and for every tournament you enter, and these certainly won’t be going to waste.  In fact, you can use them to cash in on further rewards, including free tournament entries, merchandise from their store, and more.  In addition to this, they start you out at the first level, where you get 2 points for every dollar, and depending on how much you play, you can move up the levels, where you get more and more points for every dollar in rake and tournament fees as you move up.  There’s a total of 10 levels to aspire to, and things get better and better as you climb the ladder to bigger and bigger rewards, and more special treatment as well.

WPT Poker Also Offers Tons Of Action

Most online poker sites are much smaller in terms of the overall traffic there, which can  be pretty frustrating at times, especially if you only have money for one poker account.  What can happen is that you want to play and can’t find any good games at the stakes you play, and then have to choose between not playing at all, or worse, playing at a game or stake that you’re not comfortable with.  Maybe you’ll waste your time at a stake too low, or maybe you’ll risk too much by playing at one too high for comfort.  Or maybe you’ll just sit around hoping that things will pick up.  None of these are good options of course.

Now this isn’t to say that these smaller online poker sites aren’t worth having accounts at, and with some of them it’s definitely a good idea, as you can often find a real juicy table here and there.  However, these poker sites don’t work too well as far as having your main account there, for obvious reasons.  This is even more true if you tend to play at times of the day where there’s less action overall.  Is it any wonder though that most players have accounts at the busier poker sites?  Well WPT is one of those busier sites, one of the busiest in fact, due to their partnership with the hugely popular Party Poker.  So lack of traffic isn’t an issue at all at WPT Poker, and in fact, that’s one of its best features.  No matter what you like to play, and no matter what time of day you like to play it, there’s always a ton of tables and tournaments running at WPT Poker.

It’s Not Just About The Quantity Of Traffic Though

Quantity of traffic at a poker site is very important, but what’s even more important is the quality of the traffic.  By quality what I mean is the softness of the competition.  Poker sites like Full Tilt and Poker Stars also have a huge amount of traffic, but the competition is relatively stiff, with most players there knowing what they are doing.  This makes things particularly tough for newer players who usually get trampled on.  There are some much smaller poker sites who have weak competition but also have the disadvantage of far fewer players.  Ideally, you want the best of both worlds, meaning a lot of traffic that’s also loose and bad.  WPT Poker offers you both.

Softness of competition is by far the most important factor in choosing an online poker site, and it’s almost impossible to overstate how important this is.  However good you are, from a brand new player to a world class poker pro, the quality of your competition will directly impact your results.  If you’re a losing player, do you want to lose more?  If you’re a winning player, do you want to make less?  If your answer is yes to either, then you need to be playing at one of the poker sites where the competition is tougher.  However, I know that you’re no fool, and given the choice, which is a choice you indeed have, you’d prefer to play against easier players to beat.  WPT Poker is that place.

WPT Poker Also Runs Some Great Promotions

WPT Poker runs a number of special promotions, including of course ways to win seats at WPT events as well as a seat at the World Series of Poker.  You can also get involved in one of the big WPT Poker tournaments, including a $250,000 weekly tournament, and even play for your share of a cool million dollars.  All of these events, including the WPT, WSOP, and the big online tournaments, offer plenty of qualifying tournaments, suited to all sizes of bankrolls.  You can even use your WPT Poker Points to enter qualifiers.  If you only have a very small amount to spend, you can still get involved.  They even run freerolls where you can qualify for these exciting tournaments for free.  WPT Poker wants everyone to have a shot at all of this, and they succeed in making everything very accessible to all players.

Speaking of freerolls, they offer a huge amount of them, and in fact give away $100,000 every month in free tournament money.  These free tournaments also serve as great experience for newer players, and although there’s no entry fee, the prize money is real. So this is actually real good training ground for less experienced players, in contrast to play money poker, which is not only useless but actually does players harm, as the play at those tables does not resemble real money poker at all, and can create some very bad habits.

WPT Poker also offers a refer a friend program where both you and your friend can get paid simply by your friend opening an account and playing.  For every 60 WPT Poker Points your friend earns, you each get $10, up to an extra $100 each.  So with all the friends that I’m sure you have, you can imagine how much you can get paid from this deal alone.  By the way, the $10 they pay you for your friend getting the 60 points isn’t bonus money that you need to free up yourself by playing, like so many other online poker refer a friend programs, it’s instead cold hard cash in your poker account.  Just imagine all the extra loot you could raise simply by taking advantage of this one promotion!

In addition to all of this, there’s always a lot of other promotions that are running at any given time at WPT Poker, and by having an account there, you’ll be eligible to take advantage of them all.  They are out to make you happy, and that they do.

WPT Software And Security

As you might expect from such a big name in poker, the software and security at WPT Poker is all state of the art.  They in fact benefit from the many years of experience of Party Poker in this area, and run the same programs as the big poker site.  This means that the software is very easy to use, has wonderful filtering options, and is top notch in every respect.  They also have programs specifically designed to root out any and all cheaters.  You won’t worry about the reliability of the shuffle either, as it uses the latest technology and won’t have you worrying if the cards are being dealt randomly or not, as some players do at lesser poker sites.

So I’m Sure You’ve Read More Than Enough To Want To Get Started

It’s clear to see that there are many excellent reasons to have an account at WPT Poker, and give them a try.  There are absolutely no reasons not to in fact.  The only reason I can think of why any of you wouldn’t agree here is that if you just skipped ahead to this last section without reading the review.  So if this is the case for you, then you owe it to yourself to read the whole review and see why an account at WPT Poker is such a no brainer.  If you’ve been reading along though, you already know this.  So the next step is an easy one, just click on our link and you’ll be taken right to WPT Poker so can enroll.  Don’t forget to enter in our bonus code, WPTCODE, to get your free bonus money of up to $100.