Replay Poker: Useful Play-for-Free Resource or Time-Waster?

Replay Poker gets you the chance to enjoy play money poker games. All free, with no purchase required, and no gambling or betting with real cash. Indeed, there is no cash game anywhere on the menu. But are the Texas hold'em tables at Replay actually worth checking out by players? We have the full scoop for you in our comprehensive review, which answers this question and many others about this high-trafficked play money online poker site and the free chips experience it offers.

In this extensive Replay Poker review we'll reveal our own impressions of its performance overall combined with evaluations from other real poker player reviewers. We'll explore the detail on their personal experiences while actually playing at this purely play-money site, and highlight whether there have been any valid complaints about the software plus whether it's a suitable poker site for any player to spend their time on.

Keep reading below if you want to understand how the software performs, the lineup of games spread, promotions, and get the full lowdown on all other relevant aspects of the Replay Poker experience that we discovered.

Real Player Evaluation of Replay Poker

Before we get to the main body of this review, we're conscious that some prospective players may just want a quick hit list of the good and bad points. So, if you don't need anything more than a fast rundown of the pros and cons here they are.

of course, this quick list is designed to be just that - a rapid fire tally up of the obvious strengths and weaknesses. For some deeper info from our research that may help further, it's followed, after some other real player reviews, by a more detailed investigation of the key performance indicators and then the main body of our review.

Other Real Player Impressions of Replay Poker

Before pronouncing the final word on any poker site, we like to see what real users are saying on the internet. We found that most players are overall pretty satisfied with Replay Poker, but there are a few who complain about technical issues, and, of course, many question the entire purpose of play money poker.

Here are a few comments left by real players at Replay Poker:

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Key Performance Indicators

Now you've read some feedback from real players on the site, you should have got a good feeling for any likely positives or potential negatives in registering to play. To supplement that info, let's take a look at a more intensive list of the key performance indicators that will affect how you see the outcomes of joining other poker players on the site.

• Trustworthiness - Good. The question of trustworthiness normally comes into play when real cash is involved somewhere. That's not the case here, it's a free play site. However, you do need to trust that your personal info is secure, and there are no obvious indications that any compromises would be experienced here.
• Play for free - Excellent. Replay Poker was designed to offer free poker games using play money as chips. You'd expect it to score highly on this point, and it does.
• Country availability - Excellent. No countries are restricted at ReplayPoker.
• Game variety - Good. Given this is a free to play service, you'd expect that not every variant or form of poker gaming is available. But you will find the standard selection of cash games, sit n' gos, and multi-table tournaments. There's even a non-standard house variant called Royal Hold'em
• Speed of website & user experience - Good. On the basis of most real user experiences, ReplayPoker provides players with fast gameplay and a high-quality overall experience. All elements of the website operate as expected.

Replay Poker - In-Depth Review

As one of the most prominent sites for play money online poker in existence, Replay Poker has attracted adherents from all around the world, aided no doubt by its policy of not restricting any country's residents from playing. Founded in Sweden in 2005, Replay Poker has since moved to offices in the United Kingdom where it is headed by entrepreneur and investor Paul “Mr. Replay” Gould.

Although most real money poker sites also host play money tables, this is not the model followed by Replay Poker. It is exclusively a free poker room without any games being held for real money or other financial consideration. This is probably what allows it to transact the world over without being hamstrung by restrictive legislation or government crackdowns.

We here at ProfessionalRakeback are primarily focused on internet poker destinations for playing with actual and real money as opposed to practice chips, but obviously there are some players that might prefer the play-money model of gaming. If you're one of those players, this Replay Poker review has been prepared especially for you.

How to create an account

Getting started at Replay Poker is pretty much a hassle-free experience. First, navigate over to the www.replaypoker.com website:

Website of Replay Poker

Click the “Sign Up” button near the middle of the screen. This will open the registration form:

Registration Form

To create a new account, you need simply provide an email address and come up with a username and password. When you're ready, click “Sign Up” on the bottom of the form. Alternately, you can log into Replay Poker with your Facebook account by pressing the blue button marked “Join With Facebook.”

After you complete the account creation process, you will be sent an email with a link. Click on the link in the email to validate your email address. Now, you'll be able to log on and play the games.

Website Design

Once you are logged into your account, you will see the Replay Poker interface in your web browser. It might appear to be quite busy at first, with a lot of colored elements populating your screen, but all these items are neatly laid out into distinct sections to make managing them easier.

The Screen You See After Logging Into Replay

The Dashboard tab is basically a catch-all screen showing you a small sample of the games and tournaments available, your achievements, games you're currently in, and other data. The Lobby tab is where you'll find a comprehensive listing of all games and tables spread. Promotions shows you any upcoming specials and deals while the Community tab has forums and a blog for you to browse through.

The top-right player icon brings up a menu allowing you to view information about your account and change certain settings. Other small icons near the top of the page let you contact support, view your messages, manage your friends list, et cetera.

Overall, getting to where you want to go in the site is pretty intuitive. The sheer breadth of the feature available, though, means that it's easy to find oneself sidetracked on to some niche page without meaning to go there.

Website Performance Testing

Replay Poker tends to feel responsive and quick-to-load. Rather than trusting merely in our own impressions, however, we have conducted tests to see if this is really the case.

WebPageTest gives Replay a series of A scores for various aspects of speed testing, with the Replay Poker homepage taking under 2 seconds before being interactive (i.e., the user can click and scroll around), and just over 3 seconds to be fully loaded in the user's browser. Both of these are better than average.

It's a similar story when we run Google PageSpeed Insights – at least as far as desktop performance goes. ReplayPoker earns a 72% on Google's desktop metrics, which is a respectable score.

However, it achieves a paltry 26% on the mobile tests. Google reports that it takes 5.4 seconds on mobile for the page to even begin to display and more than 20 seconds before the user can interact with it. This indicates that Replay Poker does have a lot of optimization to do if it wishes to please its mobile customers.

Safety & Security

Replay Poker is serious about the security of customers' personal information as evidenced by its lengthy Privacy Policy, which explains the information collected, how it's gathered, how it's used, and how it's shared with its partners. The security measures in place relating to user info are detailed on this page too.

Replay uses HTTPS secure socket layer technology to protect any information you send. Both Google Safe Browsing and Norton Safe Web report no security issues with the replaypoker.com domain.

Licensing

Our exhaustive research was unable to uncover any details about Replay Poker's licensure status. It appears that this company is operating without a gaming license. Because it runs only play money games, the firm likely feels that an official gaming license is unneeded.

Reliability, Reputation & Trust

Replay Poker has been in business for more than 15 years, and it has attracted enough adherents that it's one of the top play money poker rooms in existence. Its founder, Paul Gould, is a noted entrepreneur and investor with other successful enterprises to his credit besides Replay.

The combination of popularity amongst real players, longevity, and reputation of its founder inclines us toward the belief that Replay Poker is an upstanding and reliable organization: an impression that's only slightly marred by the omission of a gaming license.

Welcome Bonus

There's no welcome bonus in the traditional sense at this room. Instead, you receive an initial allotment of chips for free along with the ability to top up your balance frequently. Thus, you can play totally for free without purchasing any chip packages although you have the ability to do so if your rate of chip accumulation is insufficient for your tastes.

Poker Games & Tournaments

Replay offers the normal trifecta of cash games, sit n' gos, and multi-table tournaments, and each category has its own tab in the lobby. There aren't any fast-fold games or lottery sit-and-goes.

Cash Games

Replay Poker spreads Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha hi-lo, and 7 Card Stud (Hi and Hi/Lo) tables. In addition, there's a custom format known as Royal Hold'em. Royal Hold'em is like normal Texas Hold'em but uses a deck with all cards lower than 10 removed.

Betting structures include No Limit, Pot Limit, Fixed Limit, and the somewhat unusual Mixed Limit. In Mixed Limit, the betting is Pot Limit preflop and No Limit thereafter. The only tables that feature Mixed Limit are Texas Hold'em, but No Limit, Pot Limit, and Fixed Limit are present for each of the three games Hold'em, Omaha, and Omaha hi-lo. Royal Hold'em supports only No Limit games while all stud here is fixed-limit.

The table sizes that you can find are nine-handed, six-handed, four-handed, and heads-up. However, all table sizes are not present for all variants and betting structures. Blind levels start at 1/2 and go up to 500K/1M in NLHE, but the other forms of poker have a more restricted level of blinds.

As far as which games actually see regular action, NL Hold'em is the most popular variety with games often populated up to the 20K/40K level and higher tables running sporadically. Next is NL Omaha/8 where you may encounter a couple dozen tables going at a variety of stakes. Pot Limit Omaha, Royal Hold'em, Fixed Limit Hold'em, and Stud each have only a couple of tables (sometimes zero) running simultaneously.

Sit and Gos

The SNG menu at Replay Poker runs from 500 chip buyins up to 5 million. Most games seat either 2, 6, or 9 players, but there are some three-handed contests as well as a few multi-table sit-n-goes that seat up to 18.

NL Hold'em is the format that sees the most player participation with games up to 100,000 chips firing off pretty regularly. Of the other types of poker provided, Limit Omaha/8 gets a surprising amount of attention whereas the other variants generally only have one or two contests filling up at a time.

Tournaments

There are dozens of tourneys every day at Replay Poker with buyins starting as low as 500 chips and climbing into the millions. Actually, there are also freerolls, which you can register for even if you don't have any chips to your credit.

MTT Lobby

The bulk of the schedule is NLHE, but there are a handful of MTTs for each of the other types of poker offered as well. Many of these competitions have aggressive guarantees, with overlays common, and additional prize chips are frequently added to the pool by Replay Poker. Of course, all of this extra value is denominated exclusively in play money, so it's hard to say that it represents any kind of real advantage for players.

Rake and Fees

The ring games rake is a standard 5% across the board, but the cap amount varies with the blind levels as follows:

• Below 100/200: 100 chip cap
• 100/200 – 200/400: 250 chip cap
• 500/1K – 1K/2K: 500 chip cap
• 2K/4K – 5K/10K: 1,000 chip cap
• 10K/20K – 20K/40K: 2,000 chip cap
• 50K/100K and above: 5,000 chip cap

It’s difficult to evaluate whether this rake schedule is good or bad because the practice chips in use at Replay Poker don't really have any value. The 5% amount extracted from each pot is in line with the average across the industry although many sites take a lesser percentage at higher stakes, which Replay Poker does not. Also, this site does not reduce the rake at all in heads-up and short-handed games: another shortcoming.

Tournament fees range from 2.5% for the highest-buyin events to 10% for the cheap tourneys. The fees are included in the buyin figures shown in the MTT lobby, but you can see what the value is for any specific tournament by double-clicking on it to bring up the tourney lobby.

Game Quality

The tables at Replay Poker are truly something to behold. At the smallest cash game stakes spread, the average pot size sometimes exceeds 100bb. Perhaps this verbiage from Replay's site rules gives an indication of what to expect:

Poor Gamesmanship

Players are frequently reported for playing strategies that reflect very poor gamesmanship. This may include strategies that disrupt the natural flow of the game and are frustrating for fellow players, such as "bingo" play. Penalties for poor gamesmanship are at the sole discretion of Replay Poker staff.

Yes, “bingo play” – that is, luck-based, hope-and-pray tactics – so upsets the fishy player base that many members actually take the time to complain to the site about it! Sophisticated sharks at other cardrooms would mortgage their first-born to get into real money games with individuals of this caliber, but the casual users who inhabit Replay Poker evidently prefer opponents who play “properly.”

At the higher blind levels, the play more closely resembles what you will encounter at real poker sites, perhaps at $0.05/$0.10 or $0.10/$0.25 blind levels. However, if your aim is to improve your strategy by hitting up these games in preparation for real cash tables at another site, then you would have to grind for quite a while (or pay a pretty penny for chip packages) to build up enough of a bankroll to join these “high-stakes” play chip tables.

Replay Poker Software

Replay Poker is available to play in any up-to-date web browser. In late 2019, the company upgraded from the now-obsolete Flash platform to the newer HTML5 framework. This opens up the possibility of better user interfaces and easier feature development in the future.

Unlike some web-based poker rooms, such as Nitrogen Sports and Global Poker, Replay has eschewed the philosophy of a minimalistic, lightweight gaming client. Instead, it has a more robust poker suite, complete with a lot of elements that are usually only found in downloadable poker software.

Replay Poker Dashboard

When you log into your account, you will see a dashboard giving you access to the various parts of the site. Here you'll see a few ring games with seats open, a small selection of upcoming tournaments, the achievements you have unlocked, top forum posts, and more.

Account Dashboard

You can click on any section of the dashboard to go to that part of the Replay Poker website.

Replay Poker Lobby

Switching to the lobby view is accomplished simply by clicking on “Lobby” at the top of your browser. The game lobby has Ring Games, Sit & Go Tournaments, and Multi-Table Tournaments listed in separate tabs at the top. Below this are the filters that you can click to show only games of a certain type, betting structure, or stakes.

The bulk of the lobby view consists of a list of games available along with certain stats related to them. Click on a column to sort the games by this field.

Ring Game Lobby

For ring games, the number of players is shown in the format “x/y + z” where x is the number of participants seated, y is the number of seats at the table, and z is the number of people on the waitlist.

To the right of the list of games is a small box giving information about the currently selected item. In ring games and SNGs, this window will tell you who is already seated/registered.

Tables

Once you click on a table, it will open in a new window. The table windows are resizable to just about whatever dimensions you want. However, unusually small or oddly proportioned windows can negatively affect the layout of the table elements, and in some extreme cases, the window may sport scrollbars that you have to click on to see all the action.

Each player is represented by a nameplate with that person's screenname, stack size, and avatar displayed. You can rotate the seats around by clicking on an icon of two circular arrows toward the top of the table.

Low-Stakes NL Texas Hold'em Cash Game

There are the normal preaction buttons that virtually all modern online poker sites sport. Then when the action is on you, you have the familiar Fold, Check/Call, and Bet/Raise buttons arranged as you would expect from left to right.

When you want to adjust your bet size, you can drag a slider to the value you seek, type the number into a box manually, or use one of the preset bet size buttons. Unfortunately, these values represented by these buttons have been established by the programmers and cannot be altered.

Replay Poker supports multi-tabling. Each table appears in its own window. There's no limit to the number of games you can have open at once assuming, of course, that your computer possesses the necessary horsepower to run them all without slowdowns.

Chat and Notes

The chat box occupies the bottom-left corner of the table window. You can change a filter to choose which types of messages you wish to view.

The note-taking interface is found in another tab of the chat display. Click on any player or on this tab to enter in your notes.

Type Your Notes in This Box

There's a triangle-with-exclamation-mark icon that you can press if you wish to report a user for chat violations. Chat moderators are volunteers from the Replay Poker community, and they will look into any inappropriate chat that they’re informed about.

Besides the notes you enter, you will also see the country the player is from, what level of stakes he or she usually plays, and their global ranking amongst the Replay Poker community. By clicking on a username within the notes window, you can examine the profile of that player, which will appear in another browser window.

Hand History

Near the top-left of each table are the current hand number and the previous one. Clicking on the previous hand brings it up in a new window.

The hand will replay in a display that is very similar to that at the actual table. Buttons marked “Prev” and “Next” permit you to step through the hands to watch the ones you want.

Hand History Replayer

Each hand is identified by a unique URL, which you can share with anyone. This link will only display your hole cards if you access the page while you're logged into your account except if you showed your cards to the table at some point.

You cannot download hand histories to your hard drive. Indeed, there's no way to get a text version of any hand. You're restricted to viewing your old hands within the Replay Poker site.

The lack of hand history files means that poker tracking software does not work here. Some sites that don't provide textual hand histories can nevertheless function with HUDs through the use of third-party hand grabbers, but none of them exist for Replay Poker.

Game Settings

From within the top-right menu of the lobby, you can bring up the settings menu. There are several categories of settings, including notifications, language, and linking your account with your Facebook ID. Perhaps the most interesting for poker players are the Game Settings.

Unfortunately, there isn't very much here. You can turn auto re-buy and auto top-up on, change your blind posting preferences, enable four color deck, and tweak your gaming experience in a few other minor ways.

There are no themes or alternate table backgrounds. Neither is there any way to set up hotkeys, change the deck graphics, or customize the sounds.

Promotions

Replay Poker has quite a few promos active at any given time. Some of them are temporary in nature, but others are more or less permanent. Keep reading for a rundown of the recurring promotional specials extended by Replay to its customers.

Social Media Perks

Replay Poker is fairly active on Facebook and other social media. When you like the enterprise's FB page, you'll be entered into a monthly raffle with the chance to win one of 10 prizes of 50,000 chips.

Further excitement awaits those who follow Replay on Instagram. People who reply to certain Instagram images have the chance to win shirts, hats, and other Replay Poker merchandise.

In addition, the passwords to daily freerolls are posted regularly on ReplayPoker's Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feed. These freerolls occur six times a day, and they each award 100K worth of chips or tournament entries.

Bust the Staff

On the third Thursday of every month, you can enter the 1K buyin Bust the Staff tourney to attempt to best not just your fellow Replay Poker players but also members of the site's staff. Each staff member who plays has a 50,000 bounty on his or her head.

That's not the end to the extra value contained in the Bust the Staff event though. There are also 10,000 chip bounties on Replay Volunteers, like chat mods. Every other player carries a bounty of 1,000 on their head. Moreover, an additional 1 million chips is added to the pool by the house.

For those who wish to contend against the Replay staff month after month, there's a leaderboard that remains active for the whole year. At the end of each calendar year, the top 50 users who have scored the most knockouts in these tourneys divvy up a prize pool of 5 million chips.

Astral SnG Leagues

The Astral SNG leagues run weekly. In total, there are five distinct leagues, each devoted to a specific buyin level, and the total prize pool across all leagues is more than 7 million chips.

You can identify Astral sit-and-goes by their turquoise coloration in the lobby. These are the leagues available.

• Orion League – 2.5K buyin
• Ursa Minor League – 7.5K buyin
• Ursa Major League – 20K buyin
• Andromeda League – 50K buyin
• Pegasus League – 100K buyin

For each league, there are two leaderboards: one that ranks players based on their first 20 results of the week and another that counts the best 20 results. Sit-n-go points are awarded based upon the buyin level of the game as well as a player's finishing position.

Gemstone MTT Leagues

The five Gemstone MTT leagues distribute more than 20 million chips to those who participate in specified multi-table tournaments at the designated buyin levels. The five leagues are:

• Ruby League – 2.5K buyin
• Sapphire League – 7.5K buyin
• Emerald League – 20K buyin
• Diamond League – 50K buyin
• Opal League – 250K buyin

Each of these leagues has eight tournaments per day that you can register for, which are shown in gold in the tourney lobby. Each league has a leaderboard that's based on your first seven results for the week while there's another leaderboard that considers your best seven finishes during the week. Tournament points are based on the number of entrants, a player's finishing position, and the buyin amount.

Regional MTT Leagues

The Oceanic League, Asian League, European League, and American League feature monthly leaderboards, which each pay out 3 million in chips. Two tourneys per day count toward each league, and they're scheduled to accommodate users from the appropriate geographic regions. Leaderboard points are calculated using the buyin value, the field size, and final position in the event.

Private Ring Games

It's possible to create your own private games and invite your friends to participate. The interface for doing so is located in the top-right menu while you're logged into the site. It's called “Private Tables.”

By default, you can only choose from 1/2 9-max fast speed or normal speed. You will receive a link to the table, which you can share with your pals. Anyone who clicks on the link will be brought to your private game.

Play Chip Information

There are no games at Replay Poker that employ chips denominated in any form of real-life currency. Instead, everything revolves around practice chips. When you first create an account, you'll get 2,500 free chips.

Daily Boost

Every day that you log into your account, you will receive more of these chips, starting with 500 on the first day. As you keep logging in each day, the amount you get will become larger with each consecutive day you access your account up to a maximum of 2,500 on the fifth day in a row. The rewards for subsequent days repeat the 2,500 in free chips that you obtain on the fifth day.

Remember to Log in Every Day for Your Free Chips

Daily Top-Ups

If you should run out of chips, then you needn't wait for your everyday login bonus to acquire a few more. Instead, as long as your balance is lower than 500, you can click a button to receive more.

You will get 2,500 the first time per day that you avail yourself of this option. You can reload in this manner multiple times per day, but you must wait a specified time in between requests, and each top-up beyond the first in a day grants you fewer chips:

• 1st Top-up: 2,500 | no wait time
• 2nd Top-up: 2,000 | 10 minute wait time
• 3rd Top-up: 1,500 | 20 minutes wait time
• 4th Top-up: 1,000 | 30 minutes wait time
• 5th Top-up: 500 | 40 minutes wait time
• 6th Top-up: 500 | 50 minutes wait time
• 7th+ Top-up: 500 | 60 minutes wait time

Purchasing Chips

The main way that Replay Poker generates revenue is from the sale of chip packages. There are several different choices available, ranging from $4.99 for 65,000 chips to $99.99 for 3,500,000 chips. Additionally, you might see special deals from time to time especially for your first purchase.

Chip Packages for Sale

Payment methods are Visa, MasterCard, Amex, and PayPal. Once you select a chip package, you have to enter in your payment details, and then when your transaction is complete, the chips will be added to your account.

VIP Membership

Besides chip packages, Replay also sells Premium Memberships. They cost $9.99 a month or $99.99 for an entire year.

Premium members get 20% more daily bonus chips and 100K bonus chips every month. They also get to participate in exclusive tournaments and receive VIP support.

For Premium members, the restrictions on private games are lifted, and they can create tables for any stakes and poker variant.

Swag Store

Replay Poker has another revenue-generating enterprise in addition to its poker room. There's an online store where you can purchase branded merchandise.

Branded Merchandise for Sale in the Replay Poker Swag Store

Prices are on the high side and surely more than you would have to pay for similar items at your local discount clothing retailer. $11 for a mousepad, $20 for a T-shirt, and $40 for a hoodie is really only worth it if you're a big fan of the Replay brand.

Replay Poker Mobile

The old, Flash version of Replay Poker was heavily criticized for poor mobile performance, but this changed with the deployment of a new HTML5 platform in late 2019. Nowadays, you can play without incident on a smartphone or tablet.

The mobile “app” is really not an app at all but rather employs the standard web interface that you use on a desktop or laptop. Thus, it works on Androids, iPads, iPhones, BlackBerry phones, and many other devices. You can choose to play in either landscape or portrait mode.

Replay Poker Table on an Android Tablet

The recommended browser to open Replay Poker in is Chrome, and this is hardware-independent, but other web browsing software works too. However, those with Firefox are urged to use a different browser, and Internet Explorer users should upgrade to Edge.

Community Features

The team at Replay Poker has gone to considerable lengths to craft a community feel to the site. Some of their efforts in this direction include:

RPP Level

For each 2 chips paid in rake or tournament fees, you will receive 1 Replay Poker Point. These will let you advance to higher RPP levels. Your RPP level is basically a reflection of how much experience you have had at the tables.

There's a maximum of 1,750 RPPs that you can earn in a single calendar day. If you top up your account with free chips, you will incur a penalty of 5% of the amount of chips you receive, which will be deducted from your RPP total.

Achievements

As you keep grinding, you will unlock certain achievements. You can look at your collection of achievements by accessing the appropriate screen from the top-right menu.

List of Replay Poker Achievements

The achievements are collected by performing certain actions, like winning after going all-in or beating three or more opponents at showdown. You can read the requirements for an achievement by hovering your mouse over it.

These badges are divided into four categories: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Special. Some of them have an RPP level associated with them, and you cannot collect them – or even view the requirements – until you have advanced to the appropriate level.

Friends

The friends feature at Replay is basically a buddy list. You can add another user as a friend, and thereafter, you will be able to see when they are online and what tables they're at. Moreover, a section of your dashboard lets you see which of your friends has the most chips. You can even purchase chips for a friend if you so desire.

Messages

Through an onsite messaging system, you can communicate with fellow users. A regular player must be on your friends list for you to message them, but anyone can contact site moderators or staff via this system.

You Can Send Messages to Site Personnel, Moderators, and Those on Your Friends List

Messages that you receive are archived within your Inbox while those that you have sent reside in Sent Messages. To compose a new message, go to “Messages” in the top-right menu, and then press “New Message.”

Leagues

Replay Poker offers groups of card game lovers the ability to create leagues with their own private tournaments. A Replay Poker staff member acts as organizer, maintaining membership rolls and setting up the games.

Leagues Provide a Venue for Private Games

The process of creating a league cannot be undertaken on the Replay Poker website. You must instead send an email to support if you wish to host league games on the platform, including such information as the name of the league, its purpose, and the types of games and stakes to be run. If the application is accepted, a staff member is then nominated as organizer.

Forums

Replay Poker has its own community forums where players can discuss strategy tips, ask questions about anything they don't understand, make suggestions, and complain about aspects of the room that they dislike. The arrangement is basically the same as any other internet forum. There are several distinct categories, each containing threads made up of individual posts.

Forums at Replay Poker

You can log into the forums with the same credentials as your account for the poker site. New forum members are restricted in several ways, including the number of posts they can make and the fact that they cannot send PMs. However, these restrictions are slowly lifted as someone actively participates in the forums over time.

Dealing and RNG

There are some on the internet who inquire: Is Replay Poker rigged? Indeed, we have seen a number of posts that state that there's something underhanded going on with the deal at this room.

Having played at Replay's tables for hours and observed other tables over the course of several days, we did not see anything that raised our suspicions in this area. Instead, what we think is going on is that the loose and incompetent action at the tables is responsible for many unlikely holdings getting to showdown, leading to inevitable bad beats and coolers.

The unskilled and amateur players who tend to frequent this site probably harbor misconceptions about how often the best hand should win and most likely also overestimate their own skill (The Dunning-Kruger effect is relevant here). Therefore, forced to confront their own inferior play and/or unable to handle the short-term variance inherent in poker, these individuals choose to concoct elaborate tales of rigged shuffling or other unsavory shenanigans.

Such wild “theories” proliferate across the online world regarding just about every online poker venue that exists. We see no more reason to lend credence to these tales about Replay Poker than we do for any other poker room. Especially when we consider that all games here are denominated solely in play money, it seems implausible that the management of Replay Poker would have either the motivation or inclination to surreptitiously adjust the random number generator.

For what it's worth, the random number generator at Replay Poker has been tested by iTech Labs, a respected industry organization that conducts these kinds of evaluations all the time. The results were that “the card sequences are unpredictable, non-repeatable, and uniformly distributed.”

Support

No matter how competent an organization is, there are bound to be minor technical or gameplay issues that negatively impact your playing time. If you should need assistance from Replay Poker support, you can contact support[at]replaypoker.com.

Alternately, click on the question mark in a circle at the top of all pages on the site. This will bring up a list of support articles for the most common support queries. At the bottom is a “Contact us” button that opens a form that you can complete to have Replay Poker send you an email.

Support Contact Form

The company strives to reply to all support inquiries within 36 hours.

If you're looking for quick answers and don't want to wait for up to a day and a half, then there are other resources you can take advantage of. The community forums give you the opportunity to benefit from the wisdom of other players while the Help & Support section contains articles explaining how various aspects of Replay Poker work.

Alternatives to Replay Poker: Competitor Comparisons

There are a few operators offering free-to-play poker in varying formats, but for added interest we figured the most value from a comparison exercise would come from comparing those which have a more diverse perspective on their services.

For that reason, we've highlighted two poker game operators to compare with ReplayPoker and see how they line up against each other in some of the key areas. In addition to Replay - where the offer is for purely free gaming - we'll take a look at:

• Pokerstars Play Money
• Ignition Real Money

Replay Poker vs Competitors: How Do They Compare in Key Areas?

Ok, we've identified Pokerstars play money and Ignition real money poker as two viable competitors on which to base our comparison, so let's take a look at some of the important factors behind how they operate.

Trust

Trust is not such a big issue where no real money is involved, and since Pokerstars play money games and ReplayPoker don't offer cash games the question of trust doesn't come up, at least from this aspect. PokerStars, having the best brand recognition among these three sites is probably the most trusted of them, but Ignition – a part of the Bodog gaming group – is also a well-respected name in online gambling.

Of course, you also need some trust in the security of any login or personal info you supply, and that's similar for each of our competitors. We believe all three score highly from a personal security perspective.

Game Variety

Many online poker rooms excel in game variety, with all three scoring well on this point. ReplayPoker is a little limited in that there are no fast fold games nor indeed variations such as lottery SNGs. PokerStars, on the other hand, offers all kinds of variants although many of them seldom see much action. Ignition is somewhere in the middle with its Zone Poker fast-fold games and lottery-inspired Jackpot SNGs though it lacks non-community card poker formats like Stud.

Bonuses and Promotions

The only real name you need to consider for bonuses is Ignition, as the only real money poker site in our list. Ignition, in keeping with a number of real money sites, offers very high-value bonuses. You can find details on these by navigating to our Ignition review page.

Payout Speed

Again, payout speed only comes into the reckoning if you have money to withdraw. The only one of our three where that's a possibility is with Ignition Poker. Payouts there are generally fast and reliable, usually taking no more than 48 hours.

Deposit & Withdrawal Options

Similar to the last two examples, it'll only be at Ignition that cashout options become something to consider. However, deposit options can be considered analogous to chip purchasing methods, so a comparison between the three sites is valid in this area.

PokerStars' play money division leads in this area as it accepts a broad array of payment solutions, including credit cards, PayPal, Paysafecard, Google Pay, and an array of country-specific processors, such as iDEAL, POLi, Carte Bleue, and WebMoney.

Ignition also has a good variety of deposit methods available, including credit cards, and in fact it bests PokerStars in the area of crypto-currency acceptance because it transacts in several of these innovative digital coins.

ReplayPoker is a distant third place because it only permits you to buy chips with credit card or PayPal.

Speed, Software & User Experience

Now we do come to something that has relevance across the board. But it's not something you'd need to be concerned about with any of them. After many years of delivering real money gaming services, many operators are adept now at providing fast and trouble-free experiences. In the case of the three poker operators we’re comparing, all perform well from this aspect.

How has Replay Poker Evolved?

ReplayPoker has a long history dating back to 2005, so clearly there have been changes over this time with the way the website is presented and how the gaming experience is delivered.

It's fair to say though that these changes in the evolution on Replay have been almost entirely positive, and it's hard to pinpoint anything that might count as a backward step.

Some of the new features that have rolled out on Replay Poker over the past few years include the introduction of the RPP and levels system, the development of a new HTML5 client to replace the old Flash software, and the implementation of user-created private tables.

Pros | Cons | Positives

Given we're nearing the conclusion of our full review, this seems a perfect place to run through a final sum up of the positives and negatives. Let's summarize the positives first:

• All countries accepted. With no real cash exchanging hands, this poker site and the model it operates under mean there are no regulatory bodies taking an unwanted interest. This means you can register and play from anywhere in the world.
• Compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS. No concerns here that you won't be able to play on some devices; for the software has been designed to be widely cross-compatible across different operating platforms.
• No chance of losing real money. You're not going to be risking any hard cash at Replay, which you might say is both a pro and a con. The positive is obvious, and for a beginner is good news perhaps. For a more experienced player that feels ready to take some risks or use their skills in the pursuit of a financial return, it's clearly a major drawback.

Cons | Negatives | Drawbacks

• Play money games ONLY. As we mentioned in the positives above, playing for play money is a double-edged sword. OK for practice and just for pure fun, but not for anyone wanting some sort of financial return from the exercise.
• No hand histories or tracking + HUD software. This is a fairly major drawback especially for those players looking to practice to develop skills that will allow them to eventually compete with real money players.
• No fast-fold poker or lottery SNGs. This is a limitation of the game variety although there are plenty of alternative poker variants for players to get their teeth into.
• No attached casino or sportsbook. This really should be no surprise. Without real money being involved, there's little incentive for operators of play money poker sites to extend their services to other types of gambling products. Therefore, you will have to look elsewhere if you wish to sample casino gaming entertainments or bet on sports even with just practice chips.
• Questionable value of the games for practice reasons. One of the big reasons to play at free chip poker sites is to get some practice. The problem with this is that the pure fact that there is no money involved encourages many players to make reckless decisions and play in a way completely dissimilar from how they would act were real cash at stake. Because of that, the skills you acquire and gameflow you become accustomed to will not transfer over very well to real money tables.

Conclusion | Summary

This Replay Poker review has shown that this room has a lot going for it. Its cross-platform browser capabilities make it more convenient than your run-of-the-mill downloadable poker room, and it achieves this without compromising much on its feature set. As far as community-building elements, like the friends list, private leagues, and dedicated player forums, it's superior to what most standard internet poker destinations offer.

There are a couple of problems: One is that Replay Poker is for play money only. Though mainstream online poker rooms do tend to skimp a bit on their practice or free chips games, they at least possess the advantage that you can switch over to real money play after you become comfortable with the software. This possibility is missing for players at Replay Poker.

The other big drawback is one that can be seen in a number of comments besides ours - the intent and actions of the competition you'll face. As we noted in the negatives section, playing poker when there's no money at stake does seem to give many players the idea that they can play recklessly. This doesn't contribute well to a good poker experience for those players that want to learn how to play so they can win cash at some point.

In reality, there are other options available to you besides playing at no cost on play money tables or making a deposit and playing for real. You can benefit from the free money that poker sites hand out to players on a regular basis.

For instance, quite a number of rooms run free poker tournaments where you can buy in for $0 yet walk away with substantial cash prizes. Consult our list of freeroll poker rooms for more information on this topic.

There are also several no deposit free bankroll deals for you to claim. They provide complimentary money that you can play and win with. You can read about two such no deposit bonuses in this detailed ACR Poker review and this Blockchain.Poker review.

Finally, if you're ready to get serious on your poker journey, then you can shorten the road to success by depositing today and hitting the tables in earnest to try to amass cash winnings. A list of the top USA-friendly offshore poker sites will provide you with all the information you need to make a wise choice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Replay Poker operates a bit differently than most online poker rooms. Therefore, in order to address any questions you may still have, we have presented below a collection of queries about the site along with their answers.