Online Poker Skins and Networks

There are hundreds of online poker rooms to choose from, but there’s not as much actual choice as you might think. Many online poker rooms belong to a network, and are often called ‘poker skins’. These poker sites share the same software, players, and promotions. Although some poker networks allow their skins some flexibility, they are essentially the same. You could easily be sat at a 10 handed table on one site and be playing against 9 other players from completely different online poker rooms or ’skins’.

Here’s an example showing the lobby and tables for both Sun Poker and Bet 365, two leading online poker rooms on the iPoker Network:

As you can see, the lobby area and tables are the same, but just branded differently. The tables shown in these examples are actually the same – with the exact same players. A player logged into Sun Poker will see everything as if they’re playing at Titan, and a player logged into Bet 365 will see everything as if they’re playing at Bet 365. Please note: for obvious reasons you cannot play at more than one poker site on the poker network at the same time.

What’s the point of poker networks?

An online poker room isn’t going to succeed without a certain ‘critical mass’ of poker players. Unlike casino games where you play against the house, a poker room needs real players, and plenty of them. Poker networks are ideal for the providers because by joining a network they can instantly have player traffic, even if they don’t ‘own’ the players or directly profit from them. They’re also ideal for poker players, since more players provide a greater choice of games.

Do all online poker rooms belong to networks?

No, the two biggest online poker rooms, Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker are independent. They don’t share their players with any other room, just like Party Poker and Everest Poker – two more of our featured poker rooms that also have completely independent software. These are very big poker sites which don’t need to be on a network because they have enough players. It also makes them unique and one of the reasons why they’re our featured online poker rooms. Other independents include; PKR and BetFair.

How many poker networks are there?

There are a number of different poker networks, some good, and some bad. Below is a list of the most well known poker networks, their sites/skins, and what we think about them. Please note that some networks have many more poker skins than the sites listed. The purpose of this table is to show examples, and not an exhaustive list of all poker sites.

Network	Sites	Comments
Cake Poker Network	Cake Poker Sports Book Card Spike Players Only Doyle’s Room	The Cake Poker Network is a U.S. friendly network with a growing number of rooms. We’ve heard some bad things about one or two of the sites on the network (avoid Card Spike at all costs) and we therefore recommend the leading room, Cake Poker. Doyle’s Room joined the network in Jan 09, but we’ll wait to see how they settle in before recommending them.
Cereus Network	Absolute Poker Ultimate Bet	Absolute Poker was rocked by a high stakes cheating scandal in 2007. This involved a huge security breach and an alleged insider of AP who could see the other player’s hole cards, by which they proceeded to steal from other players. This generated a lot of bad press for the site and both AP and UB are now on the newly named Cereus network. We’ve strongly recommend you avoid playing at these sites.
Cryptologic	William Hill Inter Poker	This is a well known network with some flagship sites. However, it there are rumour that Cryptologic are going to concentrate on their casino games, and some of these poker rooms look set to join another networks. Therefore we don’t recommend signing up to any of these rooms just yet.
Entraction (24h)	24h Poker Red Bet Poker i4poker	This is a European focused network that has seen a decline in player traffic over the past few years. We don’t recommend playing on this network, as while it still gets an adequate amount of traffic, it doesn’t really offer anything special.
International Poker Network / Boss Media	Poker Heaven Total Poker Paradise Poker Celeb Poker TGF Poker Virgin Poker	There are some established sites on this network, which is powered by the Swedish software company Boss Media. The software could do with an overhaul as it’s lagging behind other online poker rooms and still looks the same as when I first played on it several years ago. Interestingly, they offer table games in GBP, EUR, and USD (though U.S players are not allowed) all from the same lobby.
iPoker Network	Sun Poker Bet 365 VC Poker Paddy Power Blue Square Noble Poker Bet Fred Mansion Poker	This is the biggest online poker network and has seen massive growth over the past couple of years. Sun Poker is one of our featured rooms but we also recommend Bet 365 as a good options. Unfortunately this network doesn’t allow U.S. players. But it has excellent software and there are lots of really poor players. Overall, we strongly recommend this network. Read our Sun Poker Review for more details.
Merge Gaming	Carbon Poker Aced Lucky Hog Odds Maker PDC Poker Poker Nordica Spin32	While it has a relatively small amount of players compared to other networks, it is certainly growing and we think it has a bright future. They accept U.S. players and offer something different for American’s who wants to play somewhere other than Poker Stars or Full Tilt Poker. The software is fairly good, and the players are terrible. There’s certainly money to be made for skilled poker players on this network.
Microgaming	32Red Poker Poker Time Royal Vegas Poker Ladbrokes Gnuf	Microgaming used to be a big player but they seem to have fallen quite far behind the other poker networks in the past couple of years. They’ve recently started to pull out of some U.S. states, and it’s expected that they will withdraw completely. Doyle’s Room was one of the most well known poker rooms on the network but they recently moved to the Cake Network in order to remain in the U.S. market. Due to all this uncertainty we don’t recommend any Microgaming site for the time being.
Ongame Network	Hollywood Poker Tower Gaming Betsson Bwin Coral EuroBet Gala Casinos Poker Room Inter Wetten Prime Poker Red Kings	An established network which first launched in 1999. Unfortunately they have since closed their doors to the U.S. market, but are second only to the iPoker Network in terms of player traffic. We’ve heard the software is going to be upgraded soon, which is probably needed as it looks a little dated at the moment, but they do offer some of the best bonuses. There are a lot of skins on this network and the flagship site used to be PokerRoom, but they appear to be on the decline and we cannot recommend them. Tower Gaming and Hollywood Poker are excellent choices. Overall it’s a solid network and one that we recommend.