Phenom Poker is a newcomer to the U.S.A. online poker environment having opened its doors in October 2024. Though there are occasional changes in the menu of options available to Americans, the market leaders have been basically the same companies for around a decade, so it's good to see a fresh entrant emerge.
Yet whenever an internet poker provider launches a new platform, prospective players confront a host of doubts and uncertainties. Is Phenom Poker legit? Can I deposit and withdraw money easily? What are the games like? It is to answer these and other similar questions that we have composed a thorough Phenom Poker review.
We've done the hard work of investigating what Phenom Poker has to offer, its promotions and bonuses, the supported cashier methods, traffic levels, and more to bring you the honest facts. Read our review of Phenom Poker to help you decide whether or not to play here.
We have researched Phenom Poker in depth, both by playing ourselves and by examining what others are saying on the internet, but we think it's good to paint an overall picture in broad strokes before delving into the nitty-gritty. Thus, we've highlighted below what we feel are the biggest advantages and disadvantages to the Phenom Poker platform.
Pros:
Cons:
There are several promotions available at Phenom Poker. They start with the initial deposit bonus but then continue with offers extended on a long-term basis to regular players.
Make your initial deposit today to receive a 150% up to $3,000 Phenom Poker bonus. Deposit $2,000 to get the maximum bonus amount of $3,000.
You'll have 45 days to clear as much of the bonus as possible. Phenom Poker's website states that it will release in increments of 10% of the total bonus amount, but in our experience, this is incorrect. The bonus releases in $10 pieces regardless of the total amount of bonus issued.
To redeem each $10 real money portion of the bonus, you must rake $40. This works out to a rakeback percentage of 25%: more or less middle of the road when it comes to online poker bonuses although both the maximum size and percentage match of this deal are above average.
Making a withdrawal DOES NOT invalidate the remaining uncleared bonus. Therefore, you can deposit extra to grab an outsized bonus then withdraw some and only leave what you feel comfortable with onsite.
There are three cash game leaderboards at Phenom Poker funded by 5% of the normal rake generated each week.
The micro + low leaderboard applies to stakes of $8/$16 and below for fixed-limit games and $2/$4 and lower for big-bet games. The medium leaderboard covers stakes higher than $8/$16 and lower than $100/$200 in limit games and NL/PL games with a big blind between $4 and $50. The high leaderboard is for those ballers who play limit games of $100/$200 and above along with No Limit and Pot Limit games of $25/$50+.
Every one dollar of rake you contribute in cash games gives you 50 points toward the applicable leaderboard. Each qualifying period spans from Monday 12:00 to Monday 11:59 (GMT). 80% of the prize pool goes toward the highest placers while the remaining 20% seeds the next week's leaderboard.
There's a daily freeroll, open to all, that awards 50 USDT and features a different format of poker every day. Beyond this, people who achieve certain tiers in the rewards program gain access to additional freerolls. Everyone Silver and above gets a $100 freeroll every day, and those who make it to Gold get to participate in a Sunday free poker tournament with a ₮1,000 prize pool. Finally, those who achieve Platinum or higher gain entry to a monthly $5,000 freeroll.
Phenom Poker is known for the robustness of its game offerings. They're divided into the traditional trifecta of cash games, tournaments, and sit n' gos.
The cash games here encompass No Limit Hold'em, Limit Texas Hold'em, quite a few Omaha variants (5 Card PLO, Big O, 6 Card PLO, Limit Omaha/8, et cetera), Stud, Draw variants, and Mixed Games. Of all these formats, Mixed Games are the most interesting and contain rotations of formats that are uncommon or even nonexistent elsewhere.
For example, beyond the familiar mixes you might be aware of, like 8-Game, HEROS, and TORSE, you will encounter such delights as Big Bet Mix (NL 2-7 Single Draw, PLO, Big O, NLHE, PLO5), Circus Mix (Badeucy 2-7, Double Board Omaha, Dramaha High, Stud/8, Badacey A–5, Badugi, Dramaha 2-7, Stud Hi/Lo Regular), Fun Mix (A-5 Triple Draw, 2-7 Razz, Limit Omaha/8, Badeucy 2-7, Badugi, 2-7 Triple Draw, and Stud/8), and even more esoteric combinations of sometimes more than a dozen alternating variants.
There are many table sizes with Stud, Draw, and Mixed games tending to have six or seven seats and big-bet formats sometimes expanding to eight or nine players per table. Many variants also have heads-up tables available.
Blind levels for big-bet games run the gamut from $0.02/$0.05 all the way up through $200/$400. For limit formats, $0.50/$1 generally represent the smallest games with tables up to $1,000/$2,000 existing for some variants.
Some tables have alternate rules in effect. These include antes, bomb pots, double boards, and capped games. One unusual feature is the Real Names option. Tables with this option enabled force players to show their real names at the tables rather than usernames.
Sit & Gos are offered at Phenom Poker for NL Hold'em, PLO, and 5 Card PLO. They're priced between ₮1 and ₮50. Game sizes are 2, 6, 8, and 9 players.
The tournament schedule is made up of around 50 tournaments a day. The buyins range from $5 to $500, and they come with guarantees between $50 and $10,000.
The tourneys with the biggest guarantees are NLH games, but they by no means dominate the schedule. There's almost as much variety in the MTT lineup at Phenom Poker as there is in the ring game lobby. If you fancy a Razz or Badugi contest on occasion, then this is one of the very few online poker rooms that has what you want.
Phenom Poker has three software platforms. There's a web interface that works with just about any modern hardware out there, including mobile devices. Then there are dedicated downloads for Mac and Windows. All of these software versions run pretty much the same although the web interface is the original from which the other two were derived.
The software generally adheres to the industry standard of what has proven successful over the past couple decades. The action buttons, bet slider, table layout, and lobby information are just about what you would expect of a modern online poker site. One nice touch is that the chatbox is closed by default, but you can open it up simply by clicking on an icon. This cuts down on the clutter and distraction of constantly monitoring chat; yet, it's still there if you want it.
Plenty of configurable options are yours to adjust within the settings menu in the lobby. For example, you can choose which card graphics to display, set up a couple of hotkeys, enable or disable sounds, and select your preferred values for the betting buttons.
Nevertheless, the newness of this software does show in a few instances where the poker client isn't as advanced as we would like. You cannot join a waitlist from the lobby, for instance; you must instead open up the table and access the waitlist from there. The tournament lobby is not sortable by column, which is perplexing when you consider that the cash game lobby can indeed be sorted according to several criteria.
One business function that Phenom Poker does differently than just about everyone else is identity verification. It has become standard at all but the most libertarian of gaming outlets (ohai, SwCPoker) to enforce KYC and account verification procedures before making any payout. Phenom Poker goes an extra mile here by making users complete an ID check before they even make a deposit or begin to play.
Not only do you have to upload an ID document, like a driver's license or passport, but you actually have to take a selfie to successfully pass these checks!
The good news is that this process is largely automated and takes perhaps 10 – 15 minutes to finish. Once you have completed this procedure, you don't have to do it again. You'll see a message similar to the following if your ID verification is successfully completed:
Phenom Poker doesn't just use Tether on the Polygon Network for cashier processes and to denominate the gameplay. It actually writes every table and tournament buyin to the blockchain. Similarly, tourney prizes and money removed from a cash game table are also recorded in the relevant records forever.
This means that you can view these transactions on the blockchain. If you ever have a dispute with Phenom Poker, the electronic record of USDT Polygon will settle once and for all who's in the right and who in the wrong.
One downside though is that whenever there's congestion or any kind of disruption to the Polygon Network as a whole, transactions at Phenom Poker are delayed until the situation is resolved.
Phenom Poker works fine on mobile devices. iOS has its own dedicated app to download whereas Android users can log into the web interface to play. This web interface was actually the first software developed by Phenom, so it's actually the standard from which the various downloadable apps were derived.
If there's one glaring weakness of Phenom Poker, it's the level of traffic, which is not up to par with the largest internet poker options. Nevertheless, there are compensations for this lack, such as the nature of the players. Many of them are crypto enthusiasts who aren't very skilled at poker especially in some of the more obscure games hosted at Phenom.
Even during busy peak times, there are seldom more than 10 ring games active. During slow hours, there might only be two or three going at the same time.
However, the distribution of these players amongst the games offered is unusual. One would expect, given such small player liquidity, that most of the games would be micro-stakes NLHE with hardly anything else running. This couldn't be further from the case.
It's true that there are typically one or two small-stakes No Limit Hold'em tables going, but the majority of the games that get off the ground are PLO and its variants or mixed games. And this action can be at surprisingly high stakes. It's not uncommon to see a couple of $0.25/$0.50 NL Texas Hold'em tables running along with a $30/$60 mixed game and $1/$2 PLO.
The small number of ring games running at Phenom are more than enough to make it a valuable destination for U.S. poker fans who enjoy variants other than the big-bet standards of No Limit Hold'em and vanilla Pot Limit Omaha. The fact that these tables run for sizeable stakes is a welcome bonus too.
As light as ring game player liquidity is at Phenom Poker, the SNG lobby is even more deserted. After observing the sit & gos over a period of several days, we never saw a single one running. Indeed, seldom was there even more than a single individual registered for any single-table tourney.
Things are a bit better over on the multi-table tournament side. The guarantees that Phenom has attached to its tournaments have attracted players though they still number only a couple dozen entrants in the most popular MTTs. These guarantees also ensure that there are frequent modest overlays. Nevertheless, quite a few tourneys fail to start due to not meeting the minimum number of players.
The financial side of things has been a sore point for US-facing online poker sites, but crypto-currency has changed this for the better. Phenom Poker transacts only in crypto-currency, and so its users benefit from the advantages of this fintech innovation, like speedy confirmations and relative anonymity.
If you haven't yet hopped aboard the crypto-currency train, then there's no time like the present. Read this BTC walkthrough for step-by-step instructions on setting up your wallet and exchange accounts.
The good news is that Phenom Poker lets you make a deposit in close to two dozen crypto-currencies. The bad news is that unless you deposit with USDT Polygon, your deposit will be converted to USDT Polygon with about 1% – 2% charged as a conversion fee.
| METHOD | MINIMUM | MAXIMUM | DEPOSIT SPEED | DEPOSIT NOW |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDT (Polygon) | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Arbitrum | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Avalanche | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Bitcoin Cash | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Binance Coin | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Bitcoin | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Dai | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Ethereum | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Jupiter | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Litecoin | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Optimism | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Polygon | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Solana | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Uniswap | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| USD Coin | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Tether | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Tether Avalanche Bridged | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| USD Coin Polygon Bridged | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Wrapped BTC | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Wrapped Ethereum | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| Wrapped BNB | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
| MATIC (ETH) | NONE | NONE | A few minutes | DEPOSIT NOW! |
Though it's not the internal currency of Phenom Poker, Bitcoin is definitely an accepted coin at this room. Since it's the most popular crypto-currency on earth, we'll go through the process of making a Bitcoin deposit at Phenom Poker step by step:
Unlike deposits, payments from Phenom Poker are conducted solely through USDT Polygon. Therefore, you ought to inaugurate a compatible wallet address before beginning to play at Phenom
| METHOD | MIN CASHOUT | MAX CASHOUT | PAYOUT SPEED | FEES | VISIT PHENOM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDT Polygon | NONE | NONE | As fast as 1 minute | ONLY MINERS' FEES | VISIT NOW! |
One upside of having just one coin in which cash outs are processed is that these withdrawals are extremely speedy. We did a test withdrawal from one of our accounts near the middle of the day on a Wednesday, and the funds were in our wallet within a minute.
Phenom Poker Rewards consists of a five-tiered program. The main benefit is that you get a greater percentage of rakeback the higher in the system you progress. Higher-level players do also get a greater discount in the merchandise store, but there's only so much merch you can (or want to) buy.
Placement in the program is dependent on earning a certain number of points in a given timeframe. Each $1 in rake contributed is equal to 1 point, so it's easy to understand where you stand with regard to your progress. The requirements for each level and the rewards associated with them are:
Once you earn the required points for the stated period of time, you will advance to that level and remain there for at least that specified amount of time. For example, once you get 100 points within 30 days, you become Silver, and you are guaranteed to remain Silver for at least the next 30 days after that.
Rakeback is paid every week on Mondays. It is paid out not in USDT Polygon but rather in Phenom Poker's own proprietary token, PHNM. The site calculates how much USDT rakeback is due to each player, but this amount is then converted to PHNM at the current price, and this PHNM is then placed in each user's balance.
PHNM is a token that represents ownership in Phenom Poker. This means that as you play, your accrued rakeback gives you a stake in the platform.
This ownership has practical purposes – every week, half of the rake collected by Phenom Poker is distributed in the form of USDT to holders of PHNM. Moreover, certain strategic decisions regarding the poker room and its future direction are decided upon by vote of PHNM token holders.
You can sell your PHNM back to the site if you wish and obtain USDT Polygon for it. The price per PHNM is determined by (130 x net rake over the previous four-week period) divided by the number of PHNM tokens outstanding. As of Dec. 21, 2025, each PHNM was worth approximately $2.43.
Those looking for an all-in-one gambling solution in Phenom Poker are bound to be disappointed. This operator is all about poker and nothing else. There's no casino, sportsbook, or racebook to be found, and there are no plans to add any of these products anytime soon either.
We've already gone over many details about Phenom Poker and what makes it tick. We'd be remiss, however, if we ignored some of the weak points of this website and areas for improvement.
The software platform used at Phenom Poker is an in-house creation, and it has been live for a little over a year. The poker client does what it's supposed to do, and the layout is easy to understand, but there are a few small problems and glitches.
The font used on the tables is sometimes hard to read especially when windows are resized smaller. Buying into tournaments and cash games often involves a delay of up to a minute before the transaction completes. The responsive breakpoints determining when resizing the poker client triggers layout changes appear to not have been optimized, and this results in strange positioning of lobby elements at times.
These small issues aren't nearly enough to render Phenom Poker unplayable. They are, however, annoying and disrupt the playing experience a bit.
Phenom Poker maintains a no-tracker policy. Needless to say, this means that no HUDs are permitted either. Given the nature of the mixed games and unusual formats spread at Phenom Poker, there aren’t even trackers that are able to record some of the variants played.
While some pros might be dissuaded that their favorite tools won't work at Phenom, others take a more nuanced view. The lack of trackers, HUDs, and other similar programs means that games remain soft and aren't dominated by mass-multitabling regs. What you lose in edge from interpreting HUD stats should be more than made up for by the good quality of the games.
The support email is support[at]phenompoker.com. However, the company has representatives active on Telegram, Discord, and several social media sites, and it might be quicker to go through these channels if you want a speedy response.
We had a problem with account verification and let company representatives know via Telegram. They gave us instructions within a few minutes, and our issue was resolved within a couple of hours.
There's also an AI chatbot that you can attempt to interact with. In our experience, it was not very good and seemed to lack thorough knowledge about Phenom Poker and its policies. The Phenom Bot did say that we could ask to be connected with a team member, but it seems to us that it's better to talk right away with support personnel in Telegram rather than having to go through the motions of placating the bot.
Phenom Poker was started by former poker pro and entrepreneur Matt Valeo. He remains the CEO and no doubt retains a significant ownership stake in the firm.
However, the mechanism of ownership PHNM tokens being distributed to the player base means that the site is really owned by the community of users. Phenom states that it's a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), which is a blockchain-based entity controlled by community voting. Most players will never accrue more than a token stake in the enterprise, but some of the early adopters and team members of Phenom Poker undoubtedly hold significant reserves of PHNM with corresponding shares in the organization.
Speaking of the Phenom Team, it consists of several very well-known poker players, like Daniel “Jungleman” Cates, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, Huck Seed, Phil Laak, and Brian Rast. The fact that the site has assembled such an A list of poker talent in its short time in existence speaks well for its future prospects.
It's just as well that Phenom Poker is endorsed by such prominent names because it's licensed by the Autonomous Island of Anjouan in the Comoros: not necessarily one of the foremost jurisdiction in the regulation of online gaming. The license from Anjouan does little to give us any idea, either way, of Phenom's upstandingness or good intentions.
More reassuring is the Certificate of Integrity issued by Gaming Laboratories International (GLI), which states that the random number generator used by Phenom Poker has passed tests ensuring that it is up to industry standards. GLI has been in business since 1989 and has tested countless online and offline gambling setups to make sure they function as they should.
Phenom Poker has only been around for a short time; yet, it has its vocal proponents and detractors on the internet. We have collected what a few people have to say about the site to give you a few perspectives other than our own.
We're now coming to the end of our Phenom Poker review, and so it's time for us to render our verdict. We conclude that Phenom Poker is worth creating an account at for virtually every US and Australian poker player.
Now, it doesn't have enough of a player base to rely on for 24/7 gaming action. Therefore, it's probably wise to sign up elsewhere and keep Phenom Poker as a secondary or reserve site. Still, what traffic there is tends to be soft, and you'll encounter game types here that are almost impossible to find elsewhere.
Phenom Poker's bonus and its rewards program are solid. Freerolls and tournament overlays deliver extra value. You'll become part-owner of the site and therefore entitled to a share of the rake collected depending on your long-term volume of play, which is very cool even if it amounts to just a few extra dollars for most users.
The biggest problem at Phenom is and is likely to remain a lack of players. Well, there's only one way to fix that – sign up today and start playing!
Phenom Poker takes seriously its commitments to responsible gaming, which starts with preventing underage gambling. Because of its policy of conducting KYC upon account creation, Phenom is in a better position than most businesses to actually enforce this policy. Rather than playing whack-a-mole, trying to strike down underage accounts after they've been active for a while, Phenom prevents many problems before they start by denying these youngsters access when their ID documents fail to check out prior to playing a single hand.
The second major aspect of responsible gaming involves helping users manage their time gambling. Phenom Poker does this by allowing self-exclusion for any of the following durations:
Once self-exclusion has been requested by a customer, it will not be reversed for any reason. During the self-exclusion period, a user will not be able to log in or access Phenom Poker in any way.
Though we feel that Phenom Poker has a place in the rotation of every online poker player in the United States, you might wish to look into alternative sites too especially those with greater player liquidity. Consider these upstanding alternative poker rooms:
| Add Casino | Ignition Casino | $3,000 Welcome Bonuses | Play Now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add Casino and Sports | Bovada Casino | $5,000 Welcome Bonuses | Play Now |
| Another Crypto Poker Room | Coin Poker | $2,000 Welcome Bonus | Play Now |
If you still have questions about Ignition Casino poker, review the info below. We've compiled some of the most frequent questions and their answers into a compact FAQ section.
Yes, Phenom Poker accepts players from the USA. While we don't fully know the thought process behind any site's geographic restrictions, the fact that all transactions are done in crypto and thus avoid the U.S. banking system entirely probably plays a role in Phenom's decision to welcome American players.
Yes, you can transfer funds to another player. First you must add them to your friends list. Then go to your wallet and select the “Withdraw” tab. You'll see the option to send to a friend.
No, there's no play-for-free functionality at Phenom Poker.
In the event that you have read this review and still want to learn more about Phenom Poker, you can always go on the internet and check out the resources that are available. Here's a shortlist of destinations where you can read up on Phenom Poker some more:
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