For the online poker world, 2024 didn’t start out smoothly. Two large brands were rocked by cheating allegations, first GGPoker in late December and then Winning Poker Network in early January.
GG’s issue was a superuser who could see all-in percentages (not cards), allowing them to understand what hands opponents might have. Just a week later, WPN had to face allegations of bots on their site.
After these two incidents, where are the safest places to play online poker?
#1 – Freerolls Poker Tournaments with No Fees
This is a great time to start playing more freerolls, which can give practice and payouts – without a single cent leaving your bankroll. It’s unlikely that freerolls get targeted by bot groups since the profitability can be better in high-stakes games.
Partypoker is the top site for freerolls, though they are a top contender for regular poker games too. Between your cash games, spins, or MTTs, open up one of the Round the Clock freerolls (starting every hour, on the hour).
That’s 24 events every day, with prizes of $50, $100, and even $200 – more than most sites offer.
#2: Poker with Your Friends in Private Online Games
If you know everyone at the table personally, the games will be more fun and you can still play for real money (if you choose). Lots of sites began offering private poker game hosting after the pandemic, seeing how many players wanted home games, but couldn’t make it out of the house.
Some rooms, like PokerStars, will let you choose free chips or real money for your games. They also have more formats available than any other room so you can experiment with new games.
Set up your club in the Home Games section, and then decide the table size, stakes, and format. You’ll be ready to send invites out in minutes.
#3: Create a Mobile Poker Club
Mobile poker clubs like PokerBros have similar functionality to the Home Games we just mentioned at PokerStars. Large groups of players band together on these mobile apps, but you can use it for small groups of friends just as easily.
If you choose to play with larger organizations, you won’t know any of the other players.
So, limit your exposure by creating your own organization and running it with integrity. Invite players you trust and want to have fun games with. New members should be vouched for by you or another in your poker circle.
#4: Check the Reputations of Other Sites
Whether you do a Google search or ask some experienced players, get familiar with the site you want to play on. If there are scandals, big or small, see what happened and what your poker site did in response. If the room didn’t react with integrity and swept it under the rug, it’s not good news.
But which sites are the safest?
Getting a look at the security side of a poker room is nearly impossible. Usually, we get to hear reports or allegations from the poker community, and then a response from the poker sites. Using this metric, one of our sites stands out.
Partypoker (which we’ve already mentioned) has a solid reputation and is one of the longest-running rooms. They’ve closed accounts suspected of cheating in the past and even returned money to rightful owners. In 2022, they also started banning online cheaters from live tournaments.
“It does not matter how trivial a potential issue seems, report it to the Game Integrity team, and we guarantee we will thoroughly investigate the matter.” – Juha Pasanen, the Head of Game Integrity at partypoker.
To find out which other sites have a reputation for strong game integrity, you can browse our poker rooms or reach out to us directly.
