BetOnline Poker Review

We were excited to see that BetOnline Poker offers a very generous welcome casino bonus. With up to $1,000 up for grabs, matched to your first deposit, the BetOnline Poker welcome bonus is big. This is released into your account $5 at a time, as you collect $50 in rake.

You need to enter promo code NEWBOL to activate the bonus.

Note that there are different welcome bonuses for the sportsbook and casino games. You can only pick one. If you enjoy those games, do check out the different options before you make your first deposit.

We found that the welcome bonus is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to promotions. Here is an idea of what you can expect once you play:

• Bad-Beat Jackpot: This is triggered by losing a hand with quad jacks or better (usually to a straight flush). The prize is then divided up. The loser of the hand gets 20% of the pot, the winner gets 12.5%, another 12.5% is split between the other players at the table, 12.5% more goes to players at other designated bad-beat tables, and the rest is the seed fund for the next jackpot.
• Sit-N-Go Leaderboards: This weekly challenge pays out $5,750 to the players who earn the most comp points in single-table tournaments. There are separate prizes for regular and hyper-turbo games – and heads-up Sit-N-Go’s.
• Daily Cash Games Race: This is another leaderboard contest, giving more than $1,000 every day. The races for comp points are split between different buy-in levels.
• $250,000 Guaranteed Tournament Pools: Every weekend you will find a huge $250k in tournament guarantees with the new schedule – including a $100k guaranteed Sunday Major on the last Sunday of each month
• Loyalty Bonus: Comp points are accumulated quickly at BetOnline. You get one for each penny raked from a cash game or spent on tournament fees. These can unlock bonuses and tournament entries (as well as clear your welcome bonus). 

There are plenty of one-off promos, including qualifiers to live events. I also recommend keeping an eye on the promos for other gambling areas, which you can also take advantage of.

In our experience, most sites have No-Limit Texas Hold’em as their most popular format – at BetOnline, this dominates to a huge extent. Table sizes are 9, 6 and 2 players, and blinds start very small. There is plenty of action up to 50c / $1 throughout the day, with the higher games getting more numerous during the U.S. evenings.

If you want to participate in the bad-beat jackpot promo, you will need to choose special tables. These are clearly marked in the lobby. Keep in mind that these do charge extra on the rake to keep the jackpot growing.

BetOnline Poker Tournaments

We found that the tournament schedule has recently been revamped. This lagged behind some other U.S. poker networks, and the new guarantees are a positive sign. Most tournaments have small to mid-sized fields, with buy-ins of $11 and under. You will find bigger games on the weekends, with the $100k Sunday Major the monthly highlight.

Alongside the turbo, re-buy and bounty tournaments, you will find plenty of Sit-N-Go’s.

A new format was recently introduced to the tournament lineup. This is called ‘Windfall Poker.’ It is a three-handed Sit-N-Go game with hyper-turbo blinds. What makes this different is the random prize pools. You will find out the prize after the game starts. This can be up to 2000 times your buy-in. To balance the big prizes, the smallest prizes are 2x your buy-in.

We were pleased to find that BetOnline now welcomes Bitcoin deposits, which feature a minimum deposit of just $20. If Bitcoin isn’t your cryptocurrency of choice, BetOnline accepts 10+ other cryptocurrencies for your convenience as a deposit method. These are secure, easy to set up, and work quickly (for withdrawals as well as deposits). Alternatives for Canadian players include Visa, Mastercard, or bank wire transfers. Withdrawals for Canadian players are via either Bitcoin or paper cheque.

We found that BetOnline Poker offers a handy customer support live chat option that allows for quick responses when time is of the essence. There are also 24-7 customer support email and phone number options available on the site. In our experience, the customer support agents at BetOnline were knowledgeable and quick to respond.