We rate a site on what its operator publishes and what can be checked against the operator’s own terms — the bonus and its wagering, the minimum deposit, the licence it holds, the payout figure it reports. How that is put together is set out on our rating method page.
Poker games we cover
Poker online splits into two families, and that split matters more than any single tip. In one you are dealt against the dealer and paid from a fixed table; in the other you are playing the people sitting with you. The guides are grouped the same way.
Games against the dealer
- 3 Card Poker — three cards each and a single raise-or-fold decision. Our guide to the game puts the house edge at around 3.7% and the usual raising threshold at Q-6-4 or better; some lobbies list it as Tri Card Poker, 3 Card Brag or Poker Three.
- 4 Card Poker — the four-card version of the same idea, with its own hand rankings and its own payout table.
- Caribbean Stud — the whole hand comes down to one choice, fold or raise. Caribbean Draw adds a drawing round to it.
Games against other players
- Texas Hold’em — two cards of your own, five on the table and three rounds of betting. No-limit is the betting structure you will meet most often, and the one where a single hand can cost a whole stack.
- Seven Card Stud — no community cards, and online the site deals, so nobody at the table is handling the button.
- Razz — stud played for the lowest hand, which inverts most of what Hold’em teaches.
- Draw Hi-Lo and Badugi — draw games. Badugi is played with a four-card hand.
Odds and strategy
Every number worth knowing in poker is a frequency rather than a promise: it says what a bet costs over a long run of hands, not what the next one will do. These are the pages that hold them.
- Hold’em odds and pot odds — what a draw is worth against the price you are being asked to pay for it.
- Three Card Poker odds — the probabilities behind that 3.7% figure: by our own count the player takes 44.9% of hands, the dealer 55%, and 0.06% end tied.
- Poker strategy, Hold’em strategy and poker tips for players who are starting out.
- Hold’em tips and tips from tournament play — the game that Chris Moneymaker’s 2003 World Series win turned into a mass sport.
Cash tables, tournaments and stakes
The same game plays differently depending on the format and the money on it. These four pages cover that side.
- Tournament play and the tournament FAQ — blind structures, prize pools and how a field thins out.
- Stakes — tables with a prescribed betting limit against games where you choose your own bet size.
- Poker games by site — lobbies differ, and so does the number of tables actually running on them.
- Real money poker and private tables with friends.
Rooms, apps and the cashier
Where you play is a separate decision from what you play, and it is the one that decides how your money gets in and out.
- Poker sites and our Americas Cardroom review — that room is based in Cyprus and was relaunched in 2011 after it bought DoylesRoom.
- Poker apps — what a mobile client keeps from the desktop lobby and what it drops.
- Banking methods and cashout times — the part of a poker site players ask about after they win rather than before.
Questions players ask first
Four pages for the doubts that come up before the first deposit, not after it.
Is online poker rigged? · Is online poker harder than live? · Can you get rich playing poker? · Poker or blackjack?
Playing poker from the United States
What you can legally play depends on the state you are sitting in, and our state pages set out what each one allows. The operators in the table above are licensed outside the United States: the table names the licence each one holds, and we do not describe any of them as licensed in the US.
The casino sites listed here accept players aged 21 and over. Poker rewards patience, which is also what makes it easy to sit longer than you meant to — decide the budget before you sit down, not after. The national helpline is 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), and our responsible gambling page lists the state services and the self-exclusion tools.
Other Casino Games
- Table Games
- Free Casino Games
- Online Slots
- Online Blackjack
- Baccarat
- Online Craps
- Online Roulette
- Pai Gow Poker
- Online Scratch Cards
- Online Lotteries
- Bingo
- Online Sic Bo
- Online Keno
Online Poker FAQs
Which poker games are played against the dealer?
3 Card Poker, 4 Card Poker, Caribbean Stud and Caribbean Draw are dealt against the dealer and paid from a fixed table. Texas Hold’em, Seven Card Stud, Razz, Draw Hi-Lo and Badugi are played against the other people at the table.
What does a house edge of 3.7% in 3 Card Poker mean?
It is the long-run cost of the Ante bet rather than a statement about any single hand. Our Three Card Poker odds page puts the player’s share of hands at 44.9%, the dealer’s at 55% and ties at 0.06%, and gives Q-6-4 as the usual threshold for raising.
Which poker game should a beginner start with?
A dealer game is the shorter read: in 3 Card Poker or Caribbean Stud the hand comes down to one raise-or-fold decision and there are no other players to read. Texas Hold’em has three betting rounds, which gives both more to work with and more ways to lose a stack.
How old do you have to be to play at the sites listed here?
Twenty-one and over. Rules for other kinds of gambling are set state by state, and our state pages say what each one allows.