Bwin Poker Review
Over the past decade, bwin has grown to become the largest and most popular online gaming site in the world. While most of their revenue comes from their online sports-betting and online casino offerings, bwin has also spent a lot of time and effort on their online poker room, building it into one of the most respected poker destinations on the internet.
Generally, poker rooms that are part of larger online casino and sports book websites tend to have fairly run-of-the-mill graphics and gameplay, few and unattractive promotions, and very few serious players to play against. However, bwin poker, which launched all the way back in 1999, is the exception to this rule.
Bwin's acquisition of the Party Poker network means that there are plenty of games and tournaments available at any time of the day featuring high-quality opponents (though there are still plenty of bad players and fish to take advantage of). Their above-average poker client runs well and provides the basics that any poker player would need, and the security features and customer service are some of the best in the industry. Although bwin lacks in offering some of the really top-notch promotions and VIP rewards found elsewhere on the internet, they still provide plenty of enticements to keep players at the tables.
Poker Sign-Up Bonuses
For many years, bwin did not offer a sign-up bonus for its poker site as it was doing just fine attracting players through its online casino and sports book portal. Finally, in the past few years the company realized that it had to do something to entice poker players who had no interest in online casino games, and has begun offering sign-up bonuses.
The bwin poker sign-up bonus is a solid first-deposit bonus of 100% up to $500. While not one of the highest bonuses found in the online poker room, it is enough to reward players who want to jump in and give this famous online poker room a go.
Poker Promotions
Similarly to the way they approached the sign-up bonus, bwin did not focus too much on poker promotions for a large portion of their existence. And as with sign-up bonus, this has changed dramatically in the past few years. Now, bwin offers the same kinds of exciting promotions as many of the other top poker sites; some of these include free gifts and prizes, freeroll tournaments, chances to play in live tournaments, and even tickets to live football matches for legendary teams like Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
As with any other online gaming or poker site, bwin offers its own tiered VIP program where players accumulate points by playing. These points can eventually be redeemed for cash bonuses, electronics, tickets to live sporting events, and more. The bwin VIP program spans all of the different gaming sections of their site including the sports book and online casino; but poker players are disadvantaged in that they earn points far slower than they would playing online slots, for example.
Software
The Bwin software that powers the poker client is a very solid piece of software that provides the standard features poker players are looking for. One of the huge advantages that bwin offers over its competitors is the fact that in addition to the downloadable poker client, players can also play on their browser without downloading a thing. And the recent addition of a mobile poker client for Android and iPhone makes bwin one of the most flexible poker sites out there.
The software isn't perfect, of course; it tends to be quite the resource hog and causes slowdowns on older machines, and some of the more advanced lobby and waiting list features that poker players have come to expect are unfortunately absent. But on the whole, the software is better than most online sports book poker rooms.
Games
If you are a Texas Hold'em player, you will never have to wait long to find a ring game or a tournament at any stakes level here given the huge amount of players from around the world. However, once you get past Hold'em, there are far few games available than on some other poker-only sites. While regular Omaha, Stud, and 5-Card Draw tournaments and Sit-and-Go's can be found, there are rarely any ring games other than Hold'em.
Customer Support
As the largest online gaming portal in the entire world, the level of customer support at bwin is extremely high and can be reached in more than 22 languages through email or telephone. While the customer support itself is fantastic, there is an issue in that live support is not available 24 hours. You can submit a customer support ticket any time, but it may not be answered immediately; while telephone support is only available a few hours each day.
Banking
The standard payment methods available at most online poker rooms and casinos are supported by bwin, which is also known for providing some of the fastest and safest transactions in the entire industry. While not accepting some major deposit methods such as uKash or Neteller, deposits at bwin can be made via MasterCard, Visa, ClickAndBuy, Paypal, Moneybookers, and local bank transfer.
