How do you make your own Poker Website?

Poker white label websites have been around for a long time. First poker white label sites boomed in the late 1990s when poker was legal online in many countries and state lotteries were on the rise.

Online casinos also contributed to an increase in online poker players, with their widespread marketing campaigns and huge progressive jackpots.

The easiest way to make your own poker website is to use a third-party provider like Ignition Casino. In this case, you would create your site as usual but then swap out the graphics for poker white label – there are many templates that are available free of charge (or at a small cost).

Just like FX white label services, you can hire poker white label service providers to work on your project. The whole process will be carried out by professionals and you will get the final product.

Hiring White Label Solutions for Poker Websites

Depending on your skill level and how much you have to invest in making an online poker site of your own, it can cost anywhere between tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase a white label solution.

If you’re looking for a way to profit from a new website without investing that kind of money and without rewriting their code from the ground up, hiring a white label solution might be the answer for you.

Buying a white label solution is not as straightforward as setting up a website of your own with WordPress or buying the rights to code from another website.

That’s because the idea behind white label solutions includes several different factors that need to be considered before you buy them. When you’re trying to determine what you need and what you’re going to spend, a lot of things play into it

Having a Solid Business Mindset

If this is your first time starting a company or poker white-label website, some things will come naturally to you while other things won’t. What you’re able to do with poker white label depends on your experience.

If you’ve only been doing this for a few months, you’ll be able to get a lot accomplished but not everything. But if this is your first time starting a poker white label company and is looking for that first product, chances are that you’re going to have some initial difficulties with it.

At the time, the main goal of most businesses is to make money. This means that they’re going to run into obstacles when trying to make their business profitable.

There are Challenges in the Poker Website Business

The most popular obstacle businesses face is scaling your poker white label business. The process of scaling an online poker room’s player base up to the point where it’s profitable is a difficult process.

The main obstacle that you’ll face will be getting players to sign up for your site and continue to get them to use your service, particularly if you’re in a niche market like online poker.

You might have the best of intentions with providing online poker games, but there are so many other options that provide the same service that people have different preferences for what they want.

For example, some people like playing on authentic poker white label sites because they get a lot more traffic and higher stakes than their competitors.

BetOnline 25 Days of Poker Xmas Promo

Celebrate the Xmas Season with $50k in Cash Prizes on BetOnline.

BetOnline are running a Christmas 2021 promotion called ’25 days of poker’, starting December 1st.

There will be $1,000 in daily Xmas cash rewards and all players need to do to win a share of the prizepool is play various poker formats.

$25,000 in Daily Poker Freerolls

From December 1 – 25 players  can opt into daily leaderboards that reward players with an entry into a $1k Freeroll at 20:00 ET.

Progress in the leaderboard will also count towards main event freerolls.

$25,000 in Main Event Freerolls

Each daily leaderboard tracks the number of points accumulated by players during the 25-day competition. There will be 3 main events running for the most engaged players throughout the month, every single point and every single day counts towards your monthly total.

Only the top 100 monthly players will qualify for one of the main events.

Find the full tournament schedule and main event dates on the BetOnline website.

Best Legal Poker Sites in the United States – Top 3 List

If you’re an American citizen or resident of the United States, you may have heard references to ‘Black Friday’, an event in 2011 in which some major online poker sites which were famous at the time – PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Bodog, Absolute Poker, Ultimate Bet and others – were shut down by the US government. 

Prior to that, in 2006, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) had been passed which prohibited USA banks and credit card companies from being able to process payments on online poker sites. The legislation went into effect a few years later and the DOJ took action against poker sites operating in the US on April 15th, 2011.

Fast forward to 2021 and now there are several legal poker sites which are permitted to operate in the US – the good news is also that there has never been any federal law against the players themselves from playing poker online. Legal action taken in the past was always directed against the sites themselves, and in cases where funds were seized as part of investigations, they were over time repaid to players.

A 2018 Supreme Court ruling increased the legitimacy of online sports betting which also allowed six US states to fully legalize online poker – Delaware (DE), Michigan (MI), Nevada (NV), New Jersey (NJ), Pennsylvania (PA), and West Virginia (WV).

Kentucky is expected to follow, and New York also has a poker bill on the table. Connecticut have also introduced an online gambling bill, and Nebraska a bill to categorize poker as a skill game.

Legal US Poker Sites

Americas Cardroom 

On the Winning Poker Network, Americas Cardroom (ACR) run the largest online tournaments in the USA, their ‘Venom’ brand events which have a prizepool of $5 million and are progressive knockout tournaments where you win prizes not only for finishing in the money but also for each player you knock out.

Players signing up via a rakeback affiliate receive 27% rakeback on demand on top of a $2000 signup bonus.

BetOnline

BetOnline is a well-established online casino and sportsbook brand that also offers poker.

Launched in 2004, they’re a reputable name in US iGaming and added their online poker room in 2012. Currently they don’t have a rakeback program but do offer frequent reload bonuses which are an equivalent form of cashback.

Black Chip Poker

Licensed in Costa Rica, Black Chip is the sister site of Americas Cardroom, more geared towards rest of world (RoW) players but also accepting Americans. 

The advantage of opening a second account at Black Chip is you can claim and clear the same $2000 deposit bonus as on Americas Cardroom – players are allowed to have one account on each ‘skin’ of the WPN network. You can also receive the same 27% rakeback by signing up via a rakeback affiliate site.

All of the above US poker sites accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a deposit method. 

Other reputable legal US poker sites include Bovada (operated by the same company as Bodog), Ignition Poker, Intertops Poker, Sportsbetting.ag, and there are some ringfenced sites available in certain US states such as WSOP.com. 

These rooms and others are listed on https://www.legaluspokersites.com/ which is a leading poker legislation review site.

Are US Poker Sites Safe?

The few sites in the past that were found to have been scams – with rigged games and superuser accounts that could see their opponents’ cards – have been shut down permanently. Those included Absolute Poker (AP) and Ultimate Bet (UB).

Today sites have audited RNGs and verification certificates from third party companies. They also have advanced software to detect collusion and botting – bot accounts are banned and any affected players compensated.

The current state of the online poker landscape is that games are safe, particularly on poker sites that have been allowed to operate in the United States and fully licensed and regulated by recognized jurisdictions.

The poker sites above have positive user feedback on poker forums such as TwoPlusTwo, and review sites like Trustpilot and Reddit.

Las Vegas World Series of Poker

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2021 took place online due to the coronavirus pandemic seeing land-based LV casinos close temporarily. Several World Poker Tour (WPT) tournament events also went fully online.

The legal US poker sites listed above run satellite qualifiers to the WSOP where you can win your way at a discount.

Turning Pro in 2022 – How to make it as an Online Poker Professional

The ‘online poker boom’ began in 2003 when a never heard of player, at the time working as an accountant, became the first player to qualify for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) online and then take down the event to become world champion. 

His story inspired many new players to turn professional, seeing that an unknown, average looking everyman they could relate to had found success on the world stage.

Fast forward to today approaching 2022, online poker games have become considerably harder to beat, as the beginners, or ‘fish’ who joined the poker scene in the two decades since that fateful day have worked on their game and become the ‘sharks’.

If you want to turn pro and make it at the online poker real money tables in 2022, this five step guide is for you.

Step 1 – Use Bankroll Management

The usual recommendation for professional real-money poker is to have 20 buy-ins or more in reserve for whatever stakes you are currently grinding.

That means you’ll need $500 to play 25NL where the big blind (BB) is $0.25 and a 100 BB buy-in is $25. Once you have $1000 you can then move up in stakes to 50NL (blinds of $0.50). 

Make sure you can maintain a positive winrate (BB/100 over zero) at the stakes you are playing at before moving up a level.

Step 2 – Practice for Free

If you’re just getting started, either start playing for play chips – at play money tables – or you can also take advantage of free video poker games on some online casino sites before moving onto to playing against human opponents.

Familiarise yourself with all the variants of poker and then stick with one where you’ll be consistently profitable. Identify which games and stakes you are best at.

Be aware of the differences between all the variants of Texas Holdem, Pot Limit Omaha and mixed games such as Razz and Stud.

Once you’ve mastered play chip tables and low stakes, then slowly move up in stakes until you reach a level where your hourly winrate is enough to pay the bills.

Step 3 – Read Books & Forums

The TwoPlusTwo Poker forums are the premier source of information, news and networking for online poker players.

Some experienced professionals post threads detailing their hand histories and breakdown their decisions in terms of ranges and GTO (game theory optimal) analysis. 

The forum also reviews and sells the latest poker books, and old classics that are still relevant today – such as Doyle Brunson’s Super System, a course in power poker for No Limit Holdem players.

It can also help to watch footage of cash game play on shows such as High Stakes Poker and Live at the Bike.

Step 4 – Use Poker Software

Many ‘regs’ – regular players, or ‘grinders’ who earn a living playing poker, and even some recreational players, today use poker tracking software.

The common programs poker players use in cash games are PokerTracker and Holdem Manager.

If you’re a tournament player there are also programs such as SNG Wizard and others which help you use perfect Push / Fold strategy in the late game stages of SNGs and MTTs when stacks are short and the blinds are high.

Notetracker software also allows you to take notes on and color code players in-game.

Step 5 – Take Shots

In poker circles taking a shot refers to testing your metal at higher stakes as a way to sharpen your game. 

For example if you’re a 100NL player (stakes of $1/$2) and you see a fish move up in stakes to $5/$10 with an open seat to their left, you may want to temporarily put aside bankroll management to follow them. 

As long as you set a strict limit for how much you’re willing to lose if you go on an unlucky streak of coolers and bad beats, you can test yourself at higher stakes in the right situations, such as having position on a fish. 

Playing against more skilled opponents can also provide you with lots of opportunities to review your hands post-game in Holdem Manager or PokerTracker and learn from the situations those players put you in.

Professional online poker players routinely will battle against each other even if they consider each other to be excellent players and there not to be much edge.

New 7 Day No-Rathole Tables at ACR

What is Ratholing?

‘Ratholing’ in poker jargon is when a players leaves the table with chips they won, and tries to return with a smaller buy-in, so their opponents don’t have a chance to win back that money.

Like a rat scurrying back into their hole with the cheese.

It’s generally frowned upon and considered bad sportsmanship – players like to play deep stacked and feel they have a chance to win back their money from their opponent at the table when they’re down a lot after a string of coolers or bad beats.

If you agree, you’ll be pleased to hear Americas Cardroom now have added 7-day no rathole tables.

For example if a player doubles up in a cooler with KK against AA, and decides to leave the $5/$10 table with $2000, they will have to buy back in for $2000 if they return at any point in the next seven days.

Only after a week has passed will they be able to sit down for the regular buy-in of $1000.

7 day no rathole tables are available at stakes of $0.10/$0.25, $1/$2, $5/$10, and $50/$100. Ideal for players who like to play deep stacked.

Updates On The Poker Industry’s Biggest Events

Michigan is joining the ranks of a lot of happy states with its breakout of online casinos. Yes, online casinos are legal and live in Michigan, and they’ve been bringing a lot of money into the state. More importantly, they’ve been bringing money into the pockets of a few lucky Michigan residents.

By offering all the excitement of actual casinos with the convenience of an online service, Michigan’s online casinos are open to more people than ever. And yes, you can play poker in them as well!

Poker is one of the many table games offered at most major online casinos. Slots are huge with online casinos and easy to play. You can also hop on to roulette and blackjack, as well as other card games. The one downside is that you can’t always play with video in the online casinos, making it harder to guess if someone is bluffing in poker.

Some services do offer webcam cams with a live dealer, but that’s more for blackjack and other non-competitive games.

So what sets Michigan’s online gambling scene apart from that of other states? Well, for one thing, it seems to be bringing in a lot more money.

Revenue is already matching that of more established gambling states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And while online poker is still young in the state, it’s quickly taking hold.

Michigan Online Poker Has A LOT Of Players

Michigan legalized online gambling back in 2019, but the law took time to actually take effect, and the companies behind it needed time to get ready. When Michigan online gambling finally debuted in January of 2021, there was only ne site offering the game: PokerStars Michigan. BetMGM joined in the spring, and not too many have followed since.

Reports say that there were about 400 online poker players on at any given time on PokerStars Michigan alone.

PokerStars Michigan recently hosted the Championships of Online Poker in September with Michigan as one of the participating states. Needless to say, online poker has a huge community in Michigan.

Michigan’s Online Casinos Made The State Tons Of Money

Michigan made a very strong entrance in its first year of online gambling. Reports from July calculated that the state’s online casino revenue, including poker earnings, brought in over $89 million. That doesn’t include the very lucrative market of sportsbook betting, which is responsible for $25 million on its own.

With that added, Michigan’s online gambling revenue for June hit $114.2 million. Meanwhile, two states that have had online casinos for some time actually brought in less than Michigan. New Jersey got $107.1 million and Pennsylvania took $100.8 million. One can only imagine how well Michigan is doing now that the big poker tournaments are underway.

More Women Want To Play Competitive Poker

Men aren’t the only ones in Michigan that enjoy online poker, or any kind of poker for that matter. Early data for the World Series of Poker and Golden Nugget series show that more women are interested than ever before. According to what social media surveys show, more women are planning on playing in poker series this season.

Like many competitive games, poker is seeing a rise in women who aren’t afraid to step into the arena. And more events are welcoming them, leading to a bit more balance in the crowds we see being drawn to the game.

2022 should prove to be an even bigger year for Michigan’s poker scene. More online services should start offering the game, and more contests will be held. As more players in Michigan take up the game, there will be even more money up for grabs!

Americas Cardroom Sponsors South America’s Largest Casino

One of the most popular online poker and casino brands, Americas Cardroom (ACR) has made another bold move to stand out from it’s competitors Bovada and BetOnline by sponsoring Latin America’s biggest casino.

In a story that broke mid-September on PR Newswire, GamblingNews and Poker.org, the flagship poker room of the Winning Poker Network (WPN) announced they were now the official sponsors of the Enjoy Punta del Este casino in Uruguay.

Casino Sponsorship Announcement

Posting to the Americas Cardroom blog on their website, rep Bob Garcia wrote:

“Punta del Este is more than just a casino. It also features 294 rooms with fabulous ocean views, 9 restaurants and bars, a spa, convention center, and so much more. What’s even better is you’ll have a chance to experience it for yourself.

That’s because our new partnership with Enjoy Punta del Este marks our return to hosting land-based poker tournaments. After a challenging 18 months, we’re happy that the pandemic is finally in the rearview mirror and we can start thinking about live poker tournaments again.”

South America Poker

News of this sponsorship is a sign of increasing interest in online gambling in South America.

We may see the return of the Latin America Poker Tour (LAPT) which ran from 2008 – 2016 sponsored by PokerStars just like the EPT and APPT (tournaments across Europe and the Asia Pacific).

The LAPT had tournament stops in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Uruguay and the Bahamas.

Smaller events sponsored by PokerStars also ran within each country, e.g. the PokerStars Festival Chile at the Enjoy Viña del Mar casino. That festival saw online poker professionals who sharpened their skills at sites like PokerStars and casinoonlinechile.com come together and compete for a $500,000 prizepool.

The most successful Chilean poker professional on the all-time-money list is an online pro, Nicolas Fierro. He’s hit Supernova Elite status and won Sunday million events on PokerStars, his total lifetime earnings over $1.7 million.

Live Poker to Return?

If ACR are correct that the Covid-19 pandemic is finally coming to close, we can expect to see similar poker tournament series taking place in the Americas and around the world as land-based casinos re-open to the public.

Recently Chile and several Latin American countries have proposed amendments to gambling laws that could see gambling become easier to access.

The president of a Colombian gambling regulator Coljuegos famously stated that ‘gambling develops the intellect’.

Win a $12,500 WSOP Package Sept 5 – 19

In the WSOP Takedown promo the Winning Poker Network (including both Americas Cardroom and Black Chip Poker) are giving away twenty World Series of Poker packages.

Win an all expenses paid trip covering the $10,000 WSOP Main Event buy-in fee and $2,500 in travel and hotel costs.

Two satellite tournaments will run on September 12th and 19th, awarding five and fifteen packages respectively.

The 12th and 19th are both Sundays. Buy-in for the first main satellite is $109, and $215 for the second.

There will also be $11 buy-in daily megas for your chance to almost freeroll your way in.

Winners can also opt for the $12,500 in cash if they can’t participate in the WSOP.

View the full tournament schedule on the Americas Cardroom website.

Pennsylvania Online Poker & Gambling See Rise in 2021

The WSOP in PA state

According to industry watchdogs Pokerfuse and PokerNewsDaily, the online poker and casino gambling scene in Pennsylvania is booming, exceeding $100 million in combined revenue last month.

Most of that was online slots and table games, but poker revenue has cracked $2.5 million in four separate months in 2021. Pennsylvania poker fans can currently play online at these regulated poker sites:

• WSOP PA
• PokerStars PA
• BetMGM Poker PA
• Borgata Poker PA

The latter two have merged to share their playerpool, and use the PartyPoker software platform. They’ve been taking some of the market share from leader PokerStars.

World Series of Poker PA

The keystone state saw its own ringfenced World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online tournament run this month – the Pennsylvania Online Bracelet Series. Residents of PA faced off against each other within state borders.

8 total events ran from August 8 – 15 on the WSOP PA website, with an average buy-in of just under $1,000. Prizepools were slightly smaller than on the main WSOP website which combines players from Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware.

US poker has been complicated since Americans were first banned from playing online poker on ‘Black Friday’ in 2011. However it is slowly returning to many states, and many remain optimistic for the complete return of inter-state play across the USA.

Pennsylvania Online Gambling

Online gambling in PA was licensed by governor Tom Wolf in 2017. After delays due to the DOJ’s reversal on its stand on the Wire act, PokerStars PA finally launched in 2019, with BetMGM, Borgata and WSOP following in 2021. Source – https://pennsylvania-online-gambling.com/

Interest in online gambling in PA and across the world has been boosted by the coronavirus pandemic, when many were locked down and turned to the internet for entertainment.

Bills have also been passed in recent years to expand and make online casino gaming, sports betting, daily fantasy sports and online lotteries legal. The horse racing betting scene is particularly popular, with a number of ‘racinos’ opening across the state.

Tourists physically located in Penn state can also gamble online in PA without being a full-time resident, providing they are over 21 or 18 in the case of fantasy sports and lottery games.

Brazilian Poker Players Win 5 Events at WSOP Online 2021

Eduardo Pires’ poker face at a live casino

Brazil has been crushing the first leg of the 2021 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online, with Brazilian poker players winning five of the first fourteen events, taking down the coveted gold bracelets and huge cash prizes.

Poker is very popular in the South American nation, and their countrymen have made a very strong showing at the WSOP this year. Alongside the give champions were another two runner-up finishers, a few third places and half a dozen final tablists.

Only one other country – Poland – has seen more than one of its players win bracelets.

Brazil Poker Winners 2021

• Joao Simao won Event #2 the $1,111 buy-in Charity event for $206,000, commenting to news media afterwards that ‘A Brazilian storm is coming’.
• Shortly after, Thiago Macedo took down Event #4 the $800 Double Chance No Limit Hold’em for $160,000.
• Then Eduardo Pires (pictured above) won Event #7 the $1,500 buy-in NLHE ‘Millionaire Maker’ event for a huge $1.4 million first place prize. That tournament had 5,437 entries.
• Lucio Lima also won Event #9 the $525 Superstack Turbo Bounty NLHE event for $95,000.
• Finally the fifth bracelet for Brazil came when Renan Bruschi won Event #14 the $500 NLHE for $150,000.

Casinos to Online

Normally the World Series of Poker is held at a land-based casino in Las Vegas – usually the Rio casino – but this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic it has been held online, hosted by GGPoker.

Brazilian online poker pros have taken advantage of this and have been overrepresented in not only this tournament series but several major poker festivals throughout 2019, 2020 and 2021.

In June 2021 two Brazilians won titles in the XL Spring series on 888 Poker.

Follow in their footsteps and sharpen your casino gaming skills at Brazilian facing sites like cacaniqueisonline.com and PokerStars.

Brazil Gambling Elite

Early last month PokerStars team pro player Andre Akkari, himself hailing from São Paulo in Brazil, commented to Pokernews.com that Brazil is now home to an ‘online poker elite’. The professional live and online player who goes by the screenname AAkkari said the following:

“Brazil at the moment it’s where you can find some amazing players, some of which are among the top in the world,” says Akkari. “You have to keep your eyes on Rafael Moraes, Yuri Dzivielevski and Bruno Volkmann, and some others. We have the elite in online poker in Brazil!” – Andre Akkari

PokerStars ran a Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP) special tournament series in 2021, the biggest online event in Latin America.

The Pocket Fives worldwide ranking has three poker players from Brazil in their top 10 – Bruno Volkmann, Renan Bruschi and Yuri Martins Dzivielevski.