Review

Sportsbook.com as a company has been around since 1997. However, the poker room was established in 2006. In addition to the poker room, Sportsbook.com offers a casino and a sportsbook. Sportsbook Poker is only available for Canadian and U.S. players. Most of the players seem to be coming from the well-established casino and sportsbook, leaving the poker tables full of inexperienced players.

Generally, the Sportsbook.com Poker competition is soft but that doesn’t mean you won’t occasionally run into a shark. The software is easy to use and because of the loose game play, Sportsbook.com has steadily gained more and more players. They were originally a part of the Cake Network and decided to move to the Merge Network.

Sportsbook.com Poker Deposit Bonus

Sportsbook.com offers new players a 100% match bonus on their first deposit. Players can earn up to $1000 in free money with this opportunity. In addition, each new player that makes his or her first deposit is given a free tournament entry into the $500 Welcome Freeroll. At Sportsbook.com, bonuses are released in $5 installments. The installments are earned by playing at Sportsbook.com.

As players play at Sportsbook.com, they earn VIP points. VIP points are a part of the Sportsbook.com loyalty program but they also monitor how bonuses are released. 75 VIP points is worth $1 in bonus money. For every 375 VIP points earned, $5 of bonus money is released.

Tournaments

Sportsbook.com has a few large guaranteed tournaments. Each week there is a $50K and a $100K guaranteed tournament. A $250K guaranteed tournament is offered monthly. Sportsbook.com offers smaller guarantee tournaments ranging from $1,500 to $20,000 on a daily basis. Pot limit Omaha is offered as a $1,500 and a $3K guaranteed tournament daily.

Sportsbook.com also has a number of freeroll opportunities. Satellite tournaments are another way for players at Sportsbook.com to win their way into larger Sportsbook tourneys along with live events. Sportsbook.com sends players to the WSOP every year through their satellite tournaments.

Unique tournaments at Sportsbook.com Poker include the Kamikaze sit n gos where every player is all-in every hand. Players can also enjoy tournament formats such as bounty tournaments, re-buys, add-ons, shootouts, freeze-outs and freerolls. The tournament schedule does change every now and then, so feel free to check it out by clicking on the Tournaments link at the Sporsbook.com Poker web site.

Cash Games

The cash games at Sportsbook.com generate a decent amount of action. Players will find cash games of varying stake levels available for Texas Holdem, Omaha Hi-Lo and Omaha. The standard cash game formats are heads-up, shorthanded (6-max) and full ring. The lower stakes levels are flooded with beginners and the game is very loose.

Cash games can be played for as little as $.01/$.02 blinds. The loose, inexperienced players that migrate over from the casino or sportsbook tend to go to the flop over 50% of the time. An experienced, tight/aggressive player can make a lot of money at the lower/mid stakes cash games at Sportsbook.com.

Sportsbook.com Software

The software offered by Sportsbook.com is standard throughout the Merge Network. It runs smoothly and the graphics are crisp. The hand history at Sportsbook.com saves chat dialogue as well, which is a nice feature. Multi-tabling runs smoothly and players should find no issues with running up to 10 tables. However, if you don’t have an adequately sized monitor, 10 tables can be a little difficult to see and manage.

Sportsbook.com offers their software as a download available on their website. Unfortunately for Mac and Linux users, the software is only available for the Windows platform. Mac and Linux users always have the option of running an emulator such as Parallels, VMWare Fusion or Boot Camp (Mac users).

The sound is customizable for the software and the avatars are life-like. Players can also enjoy a nicely constructed statistics tool that tells players just about everything they need to know. Being able to see the percentage of players that are going to the flop, the hands per hour and the average pot size is very helpful in the table selection process.

Depositing and Withdrawing

Sportsbook.com Poker only accepts players from the U.S. and Canada. The banking methods support these two countries and there are a few to choose from. Below is a list of the deposit and withdrawal methods offered at Sportsbook.com Poker.

Deposit Methods:

• Visa
• Cash Transfer
• MasterCard
• UseMyWallet
• Moneybookers
• NETELLER

Withdrawal Methods:

• Check / Gift Card
• NETELLER
• Moneybookers
• UseMyWallet
• Wire Transfer

Customer Support

Sportsbook.com offers a variety of contact methods for players. The customer support staff is available 24/7 and can be reached through email, telephone or live chat. Banking questions can be sent via email to cashier@sportsbook.com. Poker inquiries should be emailed to pitboss@sportsbook.com. Customer support can also be reached by telephone at 1-800-632-6088 (North America). The international phone number is +506-2282-1004.

If you navigate to www.sportsbook.com and click on Support and then Contact Us, you will see a link for the live chat option. This option is also available within the Sportsbook.com Poker software.

Lastly, Sportsbook.com also offers an FAQ (frequently asked questions) section that can be extremely helpful for players. Many questions, issues and concerns have been brought up or encountered by numerous players before.

The FAQ can often be the quickest resolve to a player’s questions. However, the email response time is typically within a couple hours and the live chat or telephone is essentially an instant response. The staff is always available and they have a reputation of being professional and courteous.