The Best
Poker Sites

How we review

We only feature poker rooms and training sites we have played on or studied with ourselves. Every review covers the same five areas and shows when it was last updated. Here is the method, including the parts that involve money.

What we do before we write

We only feature poker rooms and training sites that we play on or study with ourselves. A room review is written from playing there; a training review from working through the content we describe.

We write down what we see: cashout times, fees, which games are running, how the software behaves. Bonus amounts, limits and fees are set by the rooms and change often, so check them on the room’s own site before you deposit.

The five questions

Every room review answers the same five questions. They appear as the scorecard on each review.

  1. Safety & trust

    Can you trust this room with a balance?

    Operating history, network, licensing (or the lack of it), how the room has treated player funds, and its record on paying out. Offshore rooms are not licensed in US states, so we say so on every review.

  2. Payouts & banking

    How quickly and cheaply does money move?

    Deposit and withdrawal methods, minimums and maximums, fees, and how long cashouts take in practice. We recommend crypto banking and say when a method carries a fee or is likely to be declined by US banks.

  3. Games & traffic

    Will you find a game at your stakes?

    Traffic at the stakes and formats people actually play, the tournament schedule and guarantees, the games spread, and whether tables are anonymous or allow HUDs.

  4. Software & mobile

    Is it pleasant and stable to play on?

    Lobby and table software on desktop and mobile, multi-tabling, stability, and anything that gets in the way of playing.

  5. Bonus & rewards

    What do you get back?

    The welcome bonus and how it clears, rakeback or loyalty rewards, and ongoing promotions for regular players.

How the score works

Each room gets one overall score out of 5, shown as the stamp on its spine and review. The score is an editorial judgment across the five questions above, not a formula. A generous bonus cannot rescue a room we would not trust with a balance.

Training sites are ranked, not scored. They differ too much in format (subscription libraries, single courses, coaching) for a single number to mean much, so we rank by who each site serves best and say so in the review.

Dates and re-checks

Every review shows when it was last updated. When we have re-verified the bonus, links and room status, it shows a last verified date instead. Bonuses, networks and even brand names change (Intertops became Everygame, for example), so if something on a review looks out of date, tell us at editorial@thebestpokersites.com.

Money

We earn affiliate commissions from most of the rooms and training sites we list. That is how the site pays for itself. Commissions do not buy a place in a ranking, a higher score or a softer review, and a room that stops paying players comes off the list whatever it pays us. Every affiliate link is marked, and the full arrangement is on our affiliate disclosure page.

We also build two tools, Simple GTO and StackWise. They are labelled as ours wherever they appear and are never ranked.

Current rankings