WSOP.com Poker Review: All the Thrills of Vegas…From Home??

The WSOP Online New Jersey poker room brought what's probably the most widely respected brand in the industry to the NJ online market when it opened in November 2013. Perhaps it is the very prominence of the WSOP name that's responsible for the fact that this room now has more player traffic than any of its instate competitors. Meanwhile, the Nevada version of the site utterly dominates the licensed landscape, its former rivals Ultimate Poker and RealGaming Poker having shut down quite a few years ago.

Of course, it also doesn't hurt that the network that houses WSOP.com is the only operator to benefit from the multi-state online gaming compact by combining player liquidity across three states, which are Nevada, Michigan, and New Jersey, into one online poker ecosystem. No other internet room for regulated USA poker offers service in more than two states as WSOP's network does.

Most aspects of this review relate specifically to the tri-state NJ, NV, and MI WSOP Online poker room. WSOP is also active in Pennsylvania. The PA site is pretty much the same but with lower levels of traffic and smaller tournaments.

Even with a consolidated multi-state player pool, there are larger offshore poker rooms than WSOP Online doing business in the United States. Thus, there are many reasons why this provider may perhaps serve well as a secondary site for dedicated poker fans while they put in their serious action elsewhere.

     

Much as with the other legalized internet gaming destinations in the United States, this one permits people to sign up for new accounts, make deposits, and request cashouts from elsewhere while reserving actual gameplay only for those physically present within the borders of New Jersey, Nevada, Michigan, an Pennsylvania. This does include visitors as well as residents of these three states.

The WSOP.com NJ platform is operating under the auspices of its parent company, Caesars Interactive Entertainment, in conjunction with software provider 888 and physical casino partner Caesars Atlantic City. It's duly licensed to offer online games by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. In Nevada, the company is licensed by the Nevada Gaming Commission Board. In Michigan, WSOP Online's license partner is the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, and it's licensed under the authority of the Michigan Gaming Control Board.

WSOP Online Cash Game Selection

The range of stakes supported at this room is fairly expansive, running from $0.01/$0.02 up as high as $100/$200 for NLHE and PLO. PLO/8 is meanwhile spread for a restricted range of blind levels from $0.25/$0.50 to $5/$10. All tables are six-max; there are no heads-up or full-ring cash games offered.

WSOP.com used to host fixed limit Hold'em, Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, Stud, and Stud/8 games on the old version of its software. However, with the move to the new “Poker 8” software, these seldom-running variants were removed.

Fortunately for Caesars (the owners of the WSOP trademark), there's enough participation from users to make WSOP.com the network operator with the highest overall player counts. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that it's the only one that has yet managed to merge players from three separate states into one platform.

Cash Games at WSOP Online

The traffic patterns on this site appear to be concentrated around $0.25/$0.50 NL Texas Hold'em. You'll see between 10 and 20 games running at this level during peak hours, perhaps half as many at $0.50/$1.00 and $0.10/$.20, tapering off to a game or two at $0.01/$0.02 on the low end and $2.50/$5.00 at the other side of the scale. Sometimes higher action runs – at $5/$10, $10/$20, and $25/$50 – but these games tend to be shorthanded and to break up quickly.

There are typically a dozen or more PLO games populated during prime time with action as high as $3/$6 and occasionally higher. For split-pot PLO, you'll find perhaps as third as many tables, and $1/$2 or $2/$4 is generally the biggest game around in PLO/8.

WSOP Online SNGs

The sit n' goes here extend from $1 buyins at the bottom to $100 at the top. They comprise 6-handed turbo and HU super turbo formats for NL Hold'em. For PLO, the choices are restricted to 6-max turbo at buyins of $1, $5, and $25.

As far as what people are actually playing, you'll see most of them concentrated at levels between $1 and $25 with action split among 6-handed and heads-up NLHE games. There PLO side of things seems relatively deserted though.

WSOP Blast Poker

WSOP's take on lottery-style SNGs, Blast Poker is pretty similar to other lottery poker products. These three-player affairs have multipliers that are randomly determined at the beginning of the game and range from 2x to 10,000x with the higher multipliers rarer than the lower ones. The prize pool is determined by the buyin level times this multiplier.

Blast Poker

Seven multiplier values exist: 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x, 25x, 100x, and 10,000x. At the three lowest multipliers, the game is a winner-takes-all contest. At the 10x and 25x levels, second place takes home 20% of the prize pool reserving 80% for the winner. At the highest multiplier values (100x and 10,000x), the prize distribution reflects a 70/20/10 payout ratio.

There are seven buyin levels for Blast: $0.30, $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, and $30.

WSOP Online Tournaments

Though it's but a fraction of the size of its offshore competitors, the honchos at WSOP.com have crafted a very compelling MTT lineup that allows it to punch well above its weight in this department.

Tournaments at WSOP Online

Just look at the $100 Sunday tournament, which pays out no less than $100,000 in prizes. This is well beyond the reach of the other regulated online poker rooms in the States, and it's even in the same ballpark with what mainstream unregulated sites can offer. The only two offshore poker rooms that have larger Sunday Majors are Ignition with its weekly $150,000 Gtd and the Winning Poker Network's Sunday Special $250K Gtd event. The key to WSOP's ability to host such a lucrative Sunday Major undoubtedly lies in the fact that it's able to combine the liquidity of its Nevada, New Jersey, and Michigan player bases.

As impressive as this is, it's not the most intriguing part of the WSOP.com tournament possibilities. Because of this room's unique position, it can synergize with the World Series of Poker in ways that other operators simply don't have the wherewithal to accomplish.

There are online events that award 100% legitimate WSOP gold bracelets to the champions. In addition, WSOP Circuit rings can be had as well as satellite entries to prestigious live poker events. These are attractive selling points.

Of course, many other tourneys beckon even if you're not interested in the above big-ticket diversions. The buyins start as low as $1, and there are plenty of tournament guarantees to be sampled at different price points.

WSOP Mobile Poker

Besides Windows and Mac OS downloads, WSOP.com also provides apps for use with mobile systems. There are three separate apps: one for iPhone, another for iPads, and a third for Android users.

This mobile poker room used to have just a subset of the cash games you'll find in the regular lobby. To be specific, only NL Hold'em and Limit Hold'em were playable from a phone or tablet on the old mobile software.

The sit-and-go interface used to allow you to select combinations of stakes and table sizes that don't correspond to any SNGs that were actually spread by the site, and it would routinely display a message like the following:

The Window That Appeared on WSOP Mobile When You Chose a Game That Didn't Exist

However, with the changeover to a new mobile poker solution in May 2024, most of these issues have been addressed. Now, players can enjoy NL Hold'em, PLO, and PLO/8 cash games (up to four tables at a time) on their mobiles. In addition, they can play in either landscape or portrait mode.

WSOP Online Cashier

There are a number of channels through which you can make a deposit to your WSOP.com account. They're all clearly shown in the cashier:

• Credit/Debit Card
• PayPal
• Cash at Cage
• VIP Preferred e-Check ACH
• PayNearMe
• Play+

Besides PayPal, Credit Cards, and Debit Cards, which we assume our readers are familiar with, there are a couple of options that you might not have encountered yet in your internet poker adventures.

Cash at Cage is pretty self-explanatory. It refers to bringing cold, hard cash to the cage at an affiliated casino along with your photo ID. After just a few minutes, the funds will be added to your online balance. In New Jersey, players can utilize Cash at Cage at one property: Caesars Atlantic City. In Nevada, they can bring their money to the Caesars Palace LV, Planet Hollywood Las Vegas, Harrah's Las Vegas, or the Paris Las Vegas Casino. Harrah's Philadelphia is where Pennsylvanians can conduct Cash at Cage transactions. This funding method is not available in Michigan.

PayNearMe is an arrangement whereby you bring a printed voucher along with cash to any one of 7,500 7-Eleven retail locations. The money is then transferred to your poker account.

VIP Preferred e-Check lets you connect your bank account to your WSOP Online account and conduct ACH transactions. This is similar to paying a utility bill by debiting your checking account.

Play+ is a card that lets you deposit and withdraw funds among several participating online gaming sites. You can also use the card like a credit card to make purchases from retailers.

When it's time to request a withdrawal, PayNearMe is not a valid instrument for receiving your cash. In Nevada and New Jersey, credit card payouts are not supported either. All the other deposit processors are available for payouts.

Overall, the cashier is one of the strongest aspects of this site especially compared to others that are not regulated by a state governing body. Getting in good with the authorities does confer certain advantages, which we would have been remiss not to have pointed out. Of course, this cozy relationship between government and corporations has other downsides, which we don't have the space or inclination to really delve into right now.

WSOP Online Promotions

Rather than just trading on its illustrious name and resting on the laurels of its past success (*ahem* The Stars Group *cough*), the WSOP online room does quite a bit to draw in new clients and retain existing customers. There are so many promotional specials that we've decided to only inform you of the most important and valuable of them:

Welcome Bonus: 100% up to $1,000

Upon making your initial deposit at WSOP, you'll be rewarded with a 100% up to $1,000 first deposit bonus. For every 50 Action Poker Points you collect, which corresponds to $25 in rake and tourney fees, you'll get a $5 credit applied to your real money balance. This is a rakeback value of 20%: nothing really too thrilling but not too bad either. You have 90 days to work off as much of the bonus as you can, after which all remaining unearned bonus will expire.

Poker Rewards

Poker Rewards is effectively a rakeback scheme that delivers greater and greater value the higher you climb in the ranks. Every time you rake $10, you'll complete a tier in the rewards program and unlock a certain amount of rakeback. The initial levels of this system are worth a paltry 2.5% rakeback, but at a certain point, your RB percentage will jump to a decent 10%. Keep playing to get higher and higher rakeback returns up to a maximum of 40%.

Your progress resets every month. This means you'll have to keep grinding to retain your level of rakeback.

Caesars Rewards

As you put in the hands on the WSOP Online platform, you'll also be earning tier credits in Caesars Rewards, the players' club for Caesars' brick-and-mortar gaming properties around the world. You'll get 1 tier credit for every $25 raked.

This rate of tier accumulation is not very great, and you'll need 15,000 tier credits in a year to hit what's perhaps the sweet spot of the Caesars Rewards program: Diamond tier. This corresponds to raking $375,000 in a year, a target that's only achievable for the most dedicated of grinders.

Still, even by earning a few tier credits per month consistently over time, you'll likely unlock marketing offers from the Caesars team, which could include comped or discounted hotel stays, casino free play, and resort credits to use at any of dozens of Caesars-affiliated properties.

WSOP Online Casino

Though it's hardly mentioned at all on the WSOP online poker web page, there is a WSOP New Jersey casino attached to the poker room. It appears to not be active in other markets likely due to regulatory reasons.

You can open up the online casino through the button marked, “Casino” in the bottom-left of the poker client. The web-based casino interface will then open up in a browser window.

The games are divided into several categories, like “Slots,” “Video Poker,” and “Blackjack,” making it easy to find what you seek.

Casino Games at WSOP Online

There are more than 800 titles for you to sample from in the WSOP Casino. Thus, this operator is likely to have all bases covered regarding the types of games you would expect to see.

Nevertheless, there are drawbacks to the WSOP Casino, the most notable of which is that there are seldom any promotions for it. This makes sense as the brand is more focused on poker whereas Caesars opts generally to promote its Caesars Palace online casino in those states where it is able to do so.

If you're a serious casino gambling maven, then you'll probably want to be rewarded for your action with bonuses, cashback, free spins, and a variety of other promos. In that case, we advise you to play at an offshore online casino for Americans instead.

WSOP Sportsbook

Sportsbetting, in both brick-and-mortar and virtual forms, has appeared in New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania as a consequence of the Murphy v. NCAA Supreme Court case>, which overturned a decades-old federal prohibition on betting on sports. Meanwhile, this form of betting has been present in Nevada for decades.

Sadly, though, WSOP.com has not pursued licensure for this activity, and so you cannot place sporting wagers with your poker account.

If you want to be able to play cards and bet on sports online using a single account, check out this list of leading U.S.A.-friendly online sportsbooks.

WSOP Online Final Thoughts

While we can't in all honesty say that WSOP has “knocked it out of the park” for USA regulated poker, it has certainly hit at least a double. It's the only one of these internet poker rooms with a combined player pool from three states, and it has a tournament schedule that cannot be matched by any of its state-regulated competitors.

The new player bonus is decent, and the ongoing value returned by the Poker Rewards club is nothing to sneeze at.

New Jerseyites and Nevadans have a restricted palette of offshore poker entities that are willing to accept their custom, perhaps in part due to the strong tactics engaged in by the NJ Department of Gaming Enforcement and NV Gaming Control Board. The DGE even liaises with its counterparts in other parts of the world, like Australia, to put the hurt on any firms that it believes to be circumventing local gambling laws.

Given the limited avenues for real money gaming available, WSOP.com may be a winning solution for some NJ and NV citizens: less so for Michiganders and Pennsylvanians who have a broader menu of options. Yet, it's probably a good idea to explore other resources too even for those who reside in New Jersey and Nevada. Tying oneself to a single operator is not a good idea.

If you live in one of these four states, click on the links below to read about the fine offshore poker providers available in your state:

• Online Poker Sites for New Jersey
• Online Poker Sites for Nevada
• Online Poker Sites for Pennsylvania
• Online Poker Sites for Michigan

If you don't live in New Jersey, Nevada, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, then WSOP.com will probably only be relevant to you if you plan on visiting one of these states in the not-too-distant future. If you fall into this category, then by all means, sign up for a WSOP.com account.

But you'll undoubtedly want to seek greener pastures for your everyday poker sessions while you're not traveling. Check out our U.S.A. internet poker guide for assistance in selecting a trustworthy place to call your online poker home.

WSOP Online Frequently Asked Questions

If you still have questions about WSOP.com that we haven't addressed above, then look below for the possible answers: