Summary (9.52)

Overview

This is the largest poker site we have reviewed. They commonly have over 10,000 real-money poker players playing during peak hours. When you include play money players, they have over 70,000 players at times. Most of their traffic is their live games and their single table tournaments. Their promotions often revolve around sending players to land-based tournaments, such as the World Poker Tour Bellagio Event and the WSOP.

Bonuses

Use the following codes to get a bonus on your first deposit at Empire Poker.

Use NUTS145276 to get 30% of your first deposit (up to $150 bonus.)

Promotions

In addition to bonuses, Empire has many promotions for its players. One promotion is their "TV Star" tournament. Each Saturday, they hold a $100+$10 tournament that awards packages to the WPT Bellagio event in December 2005. Each of these packages is worth $17,000, and Empire Poker guarantees that at least one package will be given away for each tournament.

Empire also hosts daily and monthly cash freerolls. For example, Empire hosts two daily $500 freerolls. They are open to the first 250 or 500 players who register.

Empire also has freerolls through their VIP Club. The cost to enter these freerolls is 2000 VIP Points, which does not take too long to earn, provided you do not blow all of your VIP points on Empire Poker t-shirts. These freerolls generally give out $10,000 in cash or a seat to a tournament that is worth $10k (such as the WSOP).

Empire also has been having a lot of guaranteed prize pool tournaments lately. This means that no matter how many people enter the tournament, Empire will make sure that the prize pool is at least as much as they guarantee it to be. For example, suppose they run a $1,000 guaranteed tournament. The buy-in is $10. If 100 or more people enter the tournament, then it will just be run like any other poker tournament. However, if only 70 people entered that tournament, then Empire would add $300 to the prize pool to make sure that the prize pool is at least $1,000.

VIP Club

Empire Poker also has rewards program known as their VIP club. It gives out prizes to players for playing a lot at Empire Poker. Players receive a VIP point for every 10 raked hands they play, 1 point for every $2 in single table tournament fees they pay, and 1 point for every $1 in multi-table tournament fees they pay. Players also receive epoints equal to the square of the amount of multi-table tournaments they play in each day. For example, if you play three multi-table tournaments in one day at Empire Poker, you receive an additional 9 epoints. These VIP point rates are doubled when someone is officiallly a VIP, which means they have 5,000 points or more.

Currently, VIP points help you earn entry into special freerolls, such as freerolls that reward seats to the WSOP, and may also be redeemed for prizes such as T-shirts. It takes a long time to earn a lot of VIP points, but they are a nice bonus if you are a very active player.

People who play a tremendous amount at the online Poker room qualify for their Royal Flush Club, which means they have earned 15,000 VIP Points. Once people are in the Royal Flush Club, they are eligible to earn some nicer prizes, such as a free watch, television, and lcd screen. Nevertheless, it takes a tremendous amount of poker over a long period of time to be able to claim these prizes.

Empire Poker is part of the highest traffic poker network in the world (it is the sister site to PartyPoker). It is a less good choice than Party Poker, as the multi-table tournaments at Party Poker are not included. Also, the support is not so good at Empire Poker. There are decent promotions such refer a friend program, free rolls and money added tournaments. There are quite a few juicy games at Empire Poker with loose action (although you don't get the statistics to easily locate those games). There are lots of multi-table tournaments. Beside the packed Holdem tables, the seven-card stud tables offers great action around the clock as well. Real money player statistics - August 2005: 18000-20000 ring game players at peak hours, 11000-13000 tournament players at peak hours.

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/Software and graphics (9.2)

The software is reasonably good, with a number of upgrades during both 2003 and early 2004. We are not big fans of the graphics, but from a practical standpoint the playability is good. With its phenomenal growth, Empire Poker has added servers and increased bandwidth in order to secure full reliability at 50,000 simultaneous players. However, a few players have complained over delays and disconnections at certain tournaments. Overall though, Empire Poker has very good quality nowadays in line or better than most competitors. 3 tables simultaneously per player is allowed. Unfortunately, the view flop percentages are not presented, neither are hands per hour rate. (This has the benefit though, that the looser games are "protected"). You see the average pot size of the last 20 hands. The personal playing statistics function is somewhat rudimentary, but works well. poker Player notes function is included. In sum, the software is good today after improvements to support the record braking traffic.

Ring game traffic (10)

Empire Poker's network (Party Poker) became the world's largest in ring game traffic already by late 2002/early 2003. Lately the traffic has picked up further in August 2005 reaching: 18000-20000 ring game players at peak hours.

Tournament traffic (9)

At peak times the traffic in August 2005 reaches somewhere between 11000-13000 real-money tournament players. (The multi-table tournaments are not shared with PartyPoker, as the other games are)

Game variety (8.3)

Good, thanks to the leading volume in all poker hands games hosted; Holdem, Omaha and 7-Card-Stud in both High and Hi-Lo. However, Empire Poker does not offer certain games such as heads-up matches, draw poker, crazy pineapple, etc. Moreover, there is no pot-limit version in any of the 7-Card-Stud games or the Omaha High.

Rake (7)

The rake is very attractive, as it highly disfavors the low limit games. The higher limit games actually have a comparably low rake. The rake runs as high as 10% in $0.50/$1 and $1/$2 games, as 50 cent is raked when the pot reaches $5. This holds true also for the tournaments, where good value only is provided at the higher stakes. 20% fee in $5 games and 8% fee in $100 games.

Soft competition (7)

The games overall are less tough than at most of the other top poker rooms. Thanks to the massive marketing efforts by the network lots of beginners and gamblers are attracted to the games.

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Sign up bonus (4)

Sign-up bonus at Empire Poker is 30% deposit match bonus up to $100. Play 500 hands (where you just get dealt cards), within 30 days of deposit to get $150 (equals 5 raked pots per dollar).

Loyalty bonus (3)

Yes, Empire Poker has a new VIP program for the big players. Also, there are free rolls and promotions for frequent players based on raked hands.

Promotions (10)

Empire Poker has decent promotions. The regular poker clients are offered several types of promotions, based on the raked hands they have played, with free rolls and money added tournaments. They have a standing membership referral scheme, paying $50 to the referrer and $25 to the new member.

Support (10)

The live 24-hours floor person support has worked satisfactory during our testing.

Financial security (9)

Should be clearly secure, as one of the top 10 poker rooms in the world (in the largest network). No earlier recorded problems. High score.

Deposit & withdrawal options (4)

Deposit options:
VISA, MasterCard, NETeller, FirePay, ePassporte, Citadel, eChecks, bank draft, cashier's check, money order, inter-account transfers.

Cash out options:
EChecks, NETeller, wire transfer and check.

Cashouts

This place is great about cashouts. The first one may take a bit longer, but afterwards, the process is very quick (generally 24-48 hours through Neteller). If you have the highest level of player status (I'm not sure how you achieve it; I just know that it takes awhile and occurs once you have many deposits/cashouts), cashouts to Neteller routinely come within 6 hours.

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Game Information

They only display the average pot size in the ring games, which is very frustrating. All in all, they provide you with little information about the games. I recommend watching the game for a minute or two before joining to see how loose everyone is playing.

Competition

The competition is somewhat soft at Empire. There are tens of thousands of players at this site. Many are beginners or casual players, but some are seasoned professionals. The games here are easier than at most sites. However, the games are harder than they once were.

Customer Service

Their live help feature is pretty helpful. But some of the agents aren't as competent as you'd hope. They also have phone support, which is nice.

Ring Games offered
Texas Holdem, Omaha hi-lo, Omaha, 7-stud

Ring Games stakes

Fixed Limit: $.50-1, $1-2,$2-4,$3-6, $5-10, $10-20, $15-30, $30-60 (all are popular)
Pot Limit/No Limit blinds: $.10-.25, $.25-.50, $.50-1, $1-2, $2-4, $3-$6, $5-$10, and $10-$20

Tournaments offered

Single- and Multi-table Fixed-limit Holdem, NL/PL Holdem, Fixed Omaha hi-lo, PL Omaha hi-lo, Fixed 7-stud (single-table only). They have tons of single-table tournaments but few multi-table ones. They also have sit-n-go multi-table tournaments.

Tournaments buy-ins

Single-table: $5, $10, $20, $30, $50, $100, $200 ($50 and $100 are only for holdem, holdem tournaments at all limits are popular for both single and multi)
Multi-table: $5, $10, $20, $30, $50, $100

Minimum Deposit: $50

Sportsbook Betting

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www.ep.com