New Poker SitesThere's always several important factors that go into selecting a poker site, and this becomes even more difficult to do on your own with new poker sites, given that much less is known about them. However, by neglecting these newer poker sites, you are missing out on some real good opportunities here, and better opportunities in fact than may be available elsewhere. ![]() Below you find a list of new poker sites that started in 2011. Poker Site US? Bonus Visit Review ![]() $600 ![]() $1000 Are New Poker Sites Worth Considering?Not so long ago, almost all new attempts at trying to create new poker sites failed. The problem has always been to generate enough traffic so that the place could be set up in a position to really catch on. However, it usually proved very difficult to get this necessary player base in the first place. Prospective players would visit the new poker site and see no real action there. The few players who did play there got tired of waiting too long just to get a table going. Regardless of how generous the offer was, and in some cases even letting players play with no rake at all, this remained a big struggle. So the new poker site almost always suffered a quick and merciful death. The last really successful stand alone attempt to create a successful new poker room was in fact way back in 2004, with Full Tilt Poker. What helped them survive the early stages was mainly due to it being owned by some of the biggest poker names in the business, like Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer. Back then it was unheard of for top World Poker Tour players to play online at all, and they would sit down at tables of all stakes, including the smallest limits, which as you might imagine created quite a buzz. Players would come from much busier poker rooms just for a shot at playing against some of the top pros in the business. They also borrowed a trick from the land based poker rooms and hired prop players to start out games, where the players would be paid an hourly rate plus being able to keep all their profits. I remember sending a few of my students there at the time and seeing them do well at this. So they managed to get past the difficult initial stage, and their poker site has been growing ever since, and are now the second biggest poker site around, second only to Poker Stars. So How Is It That Most New Poker Sites These Days Actually Make It?Well around this time, someone came up with a great idea. What if they could take small poker sites who are having a tough time of it, and pool all the traffic to make one big poker network? As you might imagine, it wasn't hard finding poker sites who would be willing to join these poker networks, as the increased player base that they could tap into now was much larger. So you'd see networks of 20, 40, even 60 different poker sites being put together. These new networks didn't have anywhere near the traffic of the largest poker rooms, but what they did have was more than enough. So now, when someone wants to start up a new poker site, they will almost always join one of the larger and more established networks. Those who do not have no real chance to survive, so it's rare to even see that attempted anymore. This has pretty much taken the risk right out of the equation, and what little that does exist is taken care of by the network itself, who most certainly don't want to see their players not taken care of properly should one of their member poker sites go belly up. So this deal works out extremely well for everyone, and allows new and sometimes even innovative poker rooms to have a very good chance of succeeding. Many Newer Poker Sites Aren't Even Primarily Poker Sites At AllThis new innovation in having smaller poker sites team up together to become one large one has brought a very nice addition to the online poker business. Now, sites specializing in other forms of gambling can get involved, without even worrying about having either enough of a poker player base or enough poker expertise to pull this off. So we're seeing more and more casinos and sports betting sites offering poker to their players. This is a big boost to the profitability of the poker network, as you may imagine, since these new players that are being brought in by the sports betting parlors and the casinos aren't very good at poker at all, and consider losing big chunks of money to be the norm, which they are fully comfortable with. So given the choice, why would you prefer to play against informed poker players, who have probably read all the good books on the topic, are regular members of one or more of the top poker video training sites like Cardrunners and Deuces Cracked, where the internet's best players are teaching them all the tricks, and are probably running software programs like Holdem Manager and Poker Tracker 3, and thus have the goods on you, and probably know more about your game than you know yourself? Wouldn't you rather play against a bunch of gamblers who barely know what beats what, don't know how to fold, are just in it for the thrill of the action, and don't mind a bit losing a bunch of money at it? Well the poker networks are where most of this real juicy action is at, and new poker sites will add to the fun by throwing in some extras as well. New Poker Rooms Tend To Be More GenerousSince new poker rooms need to worry more about building up their following, they tend to be more generous with their rewards than more established poker sites. Another important factor to consider is that you can only collect a poker site's introductory first deposit bonus once, and many players have already worked their way though the existing poker sites and with good reason would like to earn more bonus money. With $600 or more on the line, per poker site, and it being fairly common for new poker rooms to open up, there's a lot of money at stake of course. By the way, if you haven't taken advantage of the all bonuses that are out there for first time depositors, you really need to do so. Why would anyone not want tens of thousands of extra dollars in their poker account they wouldn't otherwise have, simply for doing what they are doing now, playing online poker? In addition, it's not uncommon for poker sites to offer reward programs to their players, but if rewards are good, which they of course are, isn't bigger rewards better? Keep in mind that these new poker rooms will typically be working harder not only to get your business but to keep it. Another great feature of new poker rooms is that, while lots of poker sites offer freerolls to their players, with the new sites, there are a lot fewer players to split this free money with, so your chances are much greater to cash in there. I have had some luck, if you can call it luck already, at the No Bad Beats Poker freerolls where only 25 to 35 people where actively playing in a freeroll. Try to find that at a poker room like Poker Stars, you will not find them. New Poker Rooms Tend To Be More InnovativeFor similar reasons, new poker rooms need to push harder than the more established ones, and tend to be a lot less complacent. This often can lead to new innovations. For example, with the new poker site No Bad Beat Poker, they have taken on an issue that bothers a lot of poker players, especially the more frequent and skilled ones, and that's the frequency of bad beats. This is all part of the game, but for whatever reason a lot of poker players feel cheated when they are a big favorite to win a hand and end up losing it due to the luck of the draw. So what No Bad Beats Poker is doing is returning the money to the players who were the big favorite, thus removing that problem. So by needing to stand out more, new poker rooms often do. The Players At New Poker Sites Tend To Be FishierBy teaming up with a poker network, this pretty much guarantees that the softness of the competition at the new poker site will be better than average. Keep in mind that these smaller poker sites who team up tend to consist of a much higher percentage of poker novices than larger poker sites. Adding to this is the fact that the better poker players tend to stay away from these poker networks, primarily due to their much larger appetite for multi-tabling and the fact that the traffic on the networks, while good, isn't really that suited to playing so many tables at the same stake any time you want. So a lot more fish plus a lot less sharks adds up to some good fishing indeed for decent or better players like ourselves. New Poker Sites Tend To Have Better Deposit And Withdrawal OptionsMany of the more established and larger poker sites have become too complacent in the assortment of deposit and withdrawal options as well. There's no real need of this though, and more could be added pretty easily, but their view is that not enough players have complained about it, so there's therefore no need to make any changes. However, this can be a real big deal depending on where you live and what your resources consist of, especially when it comes to withdrawals. No one wants to wait 4 to 6 weeks for a check to arrive in the mail, only to have it issued in a foreign currency and then have to wait up to another month for the thing to clear. Newer poker sites tend to be much more on the cutting edge here and generally have a wider selection of usable options to move money in and out of their poker site. If you want to see a list of poker sites by deposit options go to our poker deposits page. |
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