Betfair Poker

When we launched Betfair Poker back in May 2004, few people at Betfair had any idea what an amazing success story it would become.

Six months on and it is the fastest growing poker room in the world, so this month INPLAY went behind the scenes to take a look at the action.

Since its launch in May, over 23,000 members of the Betfair community have dealt themselves in at the Betfair Poker tables. Last month new players registered from no less than 45 countries. Ben Fried, Poker Room Manager, said “We were aware that poker was a rapidly expanding area, and we were inundated with requests for our own poker room. It’s a perfect fit for our company, as a person-to-person exchange, with Betfair providing the platform to play poker, just like any market on the exchange site. There was a great deal of demand for certain members of the Forum in particular to settle a few scores!”

“That’s why we’ve launched the “12 Plays of Christmas” promotion for December” he goes on. “It’s our thank-you to the Betfair community for all their support in our first year of business. There are some unbelievable prizes on offer including a brilliant car, trips to Vegas, including one to the World Series, and huge cash prizes. It’s costing us well over £100,000 to run”. You can find out more at www.betfairpoker12.com.

There is a huge amount of variety at the poker tables, with the option of playing one of four games, including TV favourite “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “7 Card Stud”, plus a variety of tournaments. Many of these tournaments are qualifiers to big offline events, such as the World Series of Poker, played in Las Vegas.

The software itself is from software company Cryptologic, one of the foremost providers of gaming software in the world. The software runs using a Random Number Generator (RNG), which is fully audited by Global Gaming Services, an internationally renowned independent testing company. The RNG assigns each card a number and then randomly selects one from the remaining cards, meaning that the shuffle is far more random than an offline game.

“It’s a competitive market. The difference we’ve tried to make with Betfair Poker is to link the online game with the offline world. We run loads of tournaments for qualification to the big professional events, and over the summer we ran a series of offline tournaments, including a river cruise, and a charity tournament. We’re planning more and more for 2005.”

For Betfair players, there is the added incentive of earning Betfair Points for playing on Betfair Poker. “We’re pretty sure that makes us totally unique” says Ben. “I don’t think there’s another poker room in the world which allows you to reduce the amount you pay on your sports betting by playing poker!”

For more information about Betfair Poker, here are some useful links:

www.betfairpoker.com – you can download software, learn the rules, and find out more.

www.betfairpoker12.com – All the information about the December promotion.

www.betfairpokertournaments.com – Full tournament schedule and hints, tips and strategies.