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Online Poker: Judging Sites For Quality
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We want to stress that we're not recommending the individual companies or groups we mention in this article; we just want to give you guidelines with a little bit of logic so that you can make better decisions for yourself in the future. Consider the following factors when choosing a poker site, in no particular order:
1. The country the site is based in and its licenses. Due to the way gaming restrictions work in the United States, all servers must be located outside America's borders. Until a few years ago, nearly all quality sites were based in Costa Rica. Subsequently, the Kanawake Indian Reservation in Canada has made site hosting attractive enough that most companies have moved there (those sites almost always boast a "Kanawake Gaming Commission" seal). Even more recently, the full-member EU nation of Malta established laws for Internet gaming licenses. Expect many of the best sites to be licensed in Malta until the UK enacts its online gaming laws, at which point Britain may become the jurisdiction of choice. In general, gaming licenses awarded by countries require operators to be held to higher standards. So if the site doesn't have a license, think twice. We expect fake poker sites to eventually start popping up with the sole intent to take people's money. Keep your eyes peeled and choose intelligently.
2. The smoothness of play. Quality also means how the site feels to you. Even if you have the most trusted poker site on the planet and all your friends dig it two times, if something really bugs you while you play there, you should go somewhere else. Follow these tips to get a feel for your site:
- Play for free on a site you're interested in for a long period before you switch over to hard currency.
- Get used to the action buttons and look for idiosyncrasies in the way the site works.
3. Badges of approval. Given by organizations that provide secure transactions and/or auditing. It doesn't mean the site is great, but it does mean that a respected third party has looked at its software. Some of the same software scrutiny is involved when an operator applies for a gaming license, especially from governmental agencies such as those in Malta and Alderney.
4. Action. The more regularly a site has active games going, the more legitimate you can assume it to be. Be wary of any site that falls quiet due to periodic inactivity.
5. Use of third parties for money deposit. If a poker site uses third parties for its money transactions (for example, NETeller or Western Union), that site has to be in compliance with the third party's regulations. Even if you don't transfer money through a third party, knowing your available options gives credibility to the site.
6. Free play. All quality sites grant you free chips if you want to try the site for literally nothing. Even if you never play a single free hand, you should stay away from sites that don't offer free play.
7. Bugs in the software. You can't find a piece of sizeable software in the world that doesn't have bugs in it, but if you find something glaring during free play (like the poker client causes your computer to freeze and become unresponsive), keep looking until you find something better.
8. Connectivity problems. If you keep getting dropped from a site, the site may be having connectivity problems. You should also check to make sure you aren't having ISP (Internet Service Provider) problems by browsing around a couple of non-related Web sites. If you're still connected to the Internet but you're not getting poker from your site, your poker host may be causing the problem. Consider looking elsewhere.
9. Identical sites. If you run across a site that looks and acts absolutely identical to another site, you may have found one site that licensed its software from another. Poke around a little to see who the copycat is. All else being equal, a site that licenses software has far less ability to fix bugs or implement new features because it doesn't have any software engineers working on staff. Also, a site that licenses software often has far less cash to use for marketing and promos. A site with its own software not only offers new features at a quicker rate, but it also stands a greater chance of staying in business two years from now. Even if the risk of any given site going under is small, if it does go under, your money may go with it.
10. User feedback. When you play for free to get a feel for a site, ask other people at the table what they think of the site and what they like or don't like. Ask them if they play anywhere else. The answers you get may be the most telling of all.
