Betsafe Poker Overview
Betsafe Poker is one of the most respected Scandinavian online gambling providers, as well as an established brand in online casino gaming and sports betting. This is a mixed blessing, because while poker rooms created out of casinos tend to have lots of fish, these are Scandinavian fish and probably not as bad at poker as you would like. Betsafe Poker is licensed and regulated in Costa Rica, and it is powered by the Cryptologic network, which ensures there will usually be at least 6-10,000 players online.
Bet Safe Poker is a room on the Cryptologic network, along with other popular online poker rooms such as Playboy Poker, Poker Plex and Sun Poker.
Betsafe Poker Game Features
Betsafe Poker keeps its options to a minimum, with only Hold’em, Omaha Hi and Hi/Lo and 7-Card Stud, as well as something called “Hold’em Blackjack”, which is Blackjack played in a ring against other players. Tables usually have 10 seats, but there are also the 6-seat “SixPaks”, as well as the “Lightning” tables with a shorter decision time of 12 seconds.
Hold’em ring games are helpfully classified in 5 categories: Limit High ($10/20 to $600/$1200), Limit Medium ($2/$4 to $5/$10), Limit Low ($0.15/$0.30 to $1/$2), No Limit and Pot Limit. Action concentrates at the low ranges of the High and Medium, and all over the Limit tables. No Limit is pretty busy up to $2/$5, although tables go up to £100/£200; and Pot Limit Hold’em small blinds range from $0.015 to £5 but are nearly empty.
Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo are only available in Limit and Pot Limit, with small blinds from $0.25 to $100. Most action is in the Omaha Hi Pot limit tables, but otherwise they are rather quiet off peak times. Betsafe Poker only offers Fixed Limit 7-Card Stud, with small blinds between $1 and $20 and quite a few players at stakes up to $10/$20.
You can find an array of 1-on-1 tables at Betsafe Poker, but they are all lumped together in a list and can only be distinguished by such acronyms as PLO8 (Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo) and NLHE (No Limit Hold’em). If you manage to surf through those, you will be rewarded with plenty of options for playing Heads Up. However, if you want to play anything other than No Limit Hold’em we suggest you bring a friend.
Betsafe Poker’s Sit & Gos come in all sizes and flavors: all game varieties are available (including the Hold’em Blackjack) in most limits as tables with 2, 6 or 10 players; and buy-ins range from $1 to €500. The vast majority of these are No Limit Hold’em, but odds are you will find the combination you want. Tourneys start with 1,000 chips, and blinds go up every 10 hands (not minutes!), except for the “Thunder” tourneys which have a shorter decision time and raise the blinds every 6 hands.
Regular scheduled tourneys are really heavy on No Limit Hold’em – with buy-ins from $2 to £200 – offering almost nothing else but a few Hold’em Blackjack tourneys for $5. But within this restriction they have quite a few exciting options: besides the SixPak and Thunderstorm tourneys, you can also find the network exclusive Headhunter Tourneys, where you score cash for every player you knock out even if you do not make it to the money in the tourney itself! There are also freerolls you can enter with your loyalty points, satellites and special qualifiers for the Caribbean Poker Classic or similar high-end events.
Betsafe Poker uses the “dealt rake” method, which means that as long as you are dealt into a hand you earn rake, even if you do not contribute to the pot. They offer really attractive bonuses, like a $500 monthly bonus with no deposit requirements and bad beat jackpots.
Betsafe Poker Software Features
The main lobby at Betsafe Poker is cool, understated and easy to navigate, with tabs at the top and a large window to display tables and all the standard info.
Table graphics can only be described as minimalist: a deep red table holds cards and chips against a dark grey background. No chairs, no plants, not a single unnecessary graphic. Since the rooms are so streamlined, players all have an identical avatar of a silver chip, but you can choose an image to go in center of chip if you really need to express your personality. The image will be really very small, has to be screened and approved (which may take up to 5 days) and you can only change it every 60 days.
Dealer action is smooth and not too fast, and it is accompanied by a female voice announcing the action: “dealing new hand”, “dealing flop”, etc. It will also remind you it’s your turn if you take too long to decide. Fortunately the sound can be disabled, and it will not be heard (even if enabled) if the window is not active. Checking has a pleasant “thump” sound, and folding is silent.
There are not many table options, but you can change the deck color, and decide if you want to see your hand value as text: “Pair of Q”, for example.
The chat window is small and out of the way, and it also serves as a pad for note-taking or as a window to display your stats. Right-clicking a player will give you the option to take notes, block chat or block image. There seem to be no Find player or Buddy List functions. Your hand history can be accessed easily and downloaded into your computer with minimal effort.
Betsafe Poker does not seem to have any special features for playing more than one table, but the minimalistic display will help, as well as the fact there is no limit to how many tables you can open.
Betsafe Poker shows stakes in 3 different currencies: dollar, euro and pound. It is 100% compatible with Poker Tracker.
Betsafe Poker Support
Betsafe Poker takes such pride in its speedy Customer Service that it offers a 15-min guaranteed response time – if you do not receive a response within 15 minutes they will give you 10 Euros. We tried it several times, and their email support staff is indeed fast and knowledgeable.
All on-line payments and transactions for Betsafe Poker are processed by ECash Direct, a respected financial institution operating since 1996 at the highest standards.
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