Background Info

Paradise Poker were one of the first online poker rooms and were at one point the largest in terms of players. They have recently been bought by Sportingbet plc, to form the world's largest online betting company.

Overall Rating 77%

One of the most polished poker rooms with very nice software and a great choice of games. Excellant support and financially secure. Games tend to be very tight though.

Software look & feel 9

Very nice software. Pleasing to the eye and feels very smooth throughout. Supports player notes and has statistics for the current session. Hand histories are available through Email. Lobby info includes average pot, % of players seeing the flop and hands per hour.

Tournaments 8

Single table tournaments start at $5 (with a $1 entry fee) and go up to $300 ($25 entry). Multi table tournaments range from $1 to $600 and have a 9% entry fee. Re-buys and Add-ons are available in some tournaments. At peak times there are about 5000 tournament players.

Ring games 8

Limit games range from $0.02/$0.04 to $40/$80. No-Limit and Pot-Limit games are listed in term of maximum buy-in at Paradise. The buy-ins go from $2 through to $500.

Game Selection 10

Superb choice of games. Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo,7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, 5 Card Stud, 5 Card Draw, Crazy Pineapple and Blackjack.

Rake 7

Works out at about 5% in Limit and No-Limit games. 10% for Single Table Tournaments (except the $5 tournaments which should be avoided at 20%) and 9% for the Multi Table Tournaments.

Full rake information for Ring games here

Support 7

Email support only but very quick to answer questions.

Banking 8

Payment

$10 minimum.
VISA, MasterCard, Switch / Maestro, NETeller, FirePay, wire transfer, bank draft.

Cashout speed and methods

Speed is good if you use Switch or Neteller. VISA cashouts for European Player only

VISA, Switch / Maestro, NETeller, FirePay and check

Sign up Bonus 7

25% of first deposit up to $50 maximum. The bonus is placed in a 'pending' account and $10 is released for each 100 raked hands played. The rake must be at least $0.25 for the hand to qualify. Tournament players will earn 1 point for every dollar paid in tournament buy-in fees. For example, in a $50 + $5 fee tournament, a player will be awarded 5 points. For 1-on-1 tournaments with less than a $1 fee, players will still get 1 point.

Promotions 7

The promotions at Paradise are mainly based around guaranteed prize-pool tournaments and WSOP packages.

Player Level 6

Some very good players who have been playing at Paradise a long time. But as with all the poker rooms of a reasonable size ther are always enough newcomers joining to find a loose game