PokerStars Poker Poker Review
Reviewed By Roy Brindley
PokerStars is the leading online poker site in Ireland as well as globally. Owned by Flutter Entertainment, the world’s largest online gambling company, PokerStars hosts the world’s largest online poker tournaments. They also offer a strong selection of poker setups catering to everyone from casual players to very high-stakes players, with a new game starting every few seconds.
PokerStars is licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission so players know they are getting a safe, trusted site when they sign up here.
Pros & Cons
PokerStars Welcome Bonus
PokerStars will give players in Ireland up to €40 worth of rewards as an incentive for registering. To get it, just click on the link provided on this page, sign up for an account, deposit €10 or more and use the bonus code FORTY. You will then receive rewards spread over the next six days, including Spin & Go tickets, which offer the chance to win 10,000 times your buy-in, plus free entry to any games of your choice. You can alternatively claim a “€20 Free Play” welcome bonus.
Promotions Offered by PokerStars
PokerStars hands out thousands of pounds in cash prizes every day as part of its Spin & Go leaderboard promotion. New players can enjoy free-to-enter Spin & Go tournaments where you can win up to €10,000 in a matter of minutes, while there are also daily cash game leaderboards.
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Game Variety at PokerStars
PokerStars runs the world’s largest and busiest poker room, so you can play almost any game imaginable at any time of day or night and at almost any limit. Buy-ins are presented in USD, spanning from $0.01 to $400.
Poker Tournaments at PokerStars Ireland
You will find dozens of multi-table tournaments beginning every hour, ranging from No-Limit Hold’em to fewer common variants such as Pot Limit Badugi. The most famous weekly tournament is the Sunday Million, while PokerStars also runs the World Championship of Online Poker, which has offered more than $1 billion in prize pools since it began 20 years ago. You can play multi-table tournaments, Sit & Go, freerolls, freezeout, rebuy, re-entry tournaments, progressive knockout tournaments, satellite tournaments, and much more.
Cash Games
PokerStars offers the largest selection of cash games in the world. Omaha, Omaha High/Low, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud High/Low, Razz, Triple Stud, Five Card Draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw, Five Card Omaha, Courchevel and Badugi games are all available, mostly in two-seat, six-seat and nine-seat versions.
Sit & Go Games
PokerStars offers a broad array of Sit & Go games, ranging from heads-up to 990 players, in both cash and satellite formats.
Live Poker
PokerStars-sponsored live events and card rooms have become the gold standard for high-quality poker across the globe. Its line-up includes the European Poker Tour, Asia Pacific Poker Tour and Brazilian Series of Poker.
PokerStars Poker Network
PokerStars runs on its own network, which is the busiest in the world. It averages more than 15,000 people playing cash games and tournaments each day.
PokerStars Competition Level
PokerStars has the world’s largest customer base, so the competition level runs the gamut from fish to sharks. The site has a reasonably experienced player profile, so you will find a lot of tight games, and the general level of competition is slightly tougher than the average.
Registration at PokerStars
The registration process at PokerStars is quick and simple. Just click “Join” at the top right of the homepage, enter an email address, choose a username and password and click “Continue”. You can choose your marketing preferences, enter personal details and then click to create your account. You will need to upload documents that verify your identity, such as a passport and utility bill.
Depositing and Withdrawing at PokerStars
PokerStars offers players a very long list of deposit options: Visa debit, debit MasterCard, Apple Pay, Maestro, Rapid Transfer, local bank transfer, direct bank transfer, PayPal, Skrill, MuchBetter, Neteller, PaySafeCard, Neosurf, PokerStarsTopUp, Google Pay and Trustly. Deposits are safe, secure and instant, and start at €10.
You can receive your winnings via Visa debit, Neteller, Skrill, MuchBetter, PayPal, WebMoney, direct bank transfer or wire transfer. Neteller, Skrill, MuchBetter, PayPal arrive within up to an hour, whereas bank transfers take 3-5 business days and Visa withdrawals can take 3-10 business days to arrive.
PokerStars on Mobile
The user experience is excellent at PokerStars. You can download a highly-rated mobile best app for betting on the go, or you can play at your desktop. The desktop site is very easy to navigate, as the games are neatly compartmentalised. Pages load quickly too.
The team also deserves a great deal of credit for creating such a user-friendly mobile poker experience. The interface changes on a regular basis due to upgrades, but it is always a pleasure to use.
PokerStars also stands out due to the wealth of educational content it offers. It is a great site for beginners, as you can play games for free before taking the plunge and playing for real money, but it is also perfectly suited to veteran players.
PokerStars VIP Program
The PokerStars Rewards scheme allows you to rack up points by simply paying the poker rake or fees across all tournaments and cash games. The points can later be exchanged for free play credit and personalised rewards.
A new recreational player will initially fall into the Blue tier, and your rewards improve as you scale the loyalty ladder. The next “Chest Level” – so named because you unlock a chest loaded with rewards – is Bronze, followed by Silver, Gold, Diamond and finally Black, which is the top VIP tier. You will unlock large rewards and monthly poker challenges if you reach that level.
With the revamped loyalty scheme launched in 2021, PokerStars clearly hold onto its crown as the king of poker sites, ensuring that it remains the market leader for Ireland online poker even as competitors like GGPoker continue to offer significant competition. Features include up to 65% of all rakeback and tournament fees paid by the players, returned via “Chests” and monthly challenges that will now be open to all players.
PokerStars Customer Support
PokerStars has an experienced and attentive customer support team, but your only option is to fill out a form and wait for a response. We would like to see it add a live chat option and perhaps a dedicated phone line in future. On the plus side, it has a very thorough FAQ section, and a help bot can help you find information on specific topics.
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PokerStars Responsible Gambling Features
There is a dedicated “Responsible Gambling” section at the PokerStars site. It provides a comprehensive guide to the various ways in which you can impose limits upon your account, including deposit limits, cash game table limits and tournament limits. You can also self-exclude.
You will find tips on how to identify and reduce the risks of problem gambling, along with a useful questionnaire. There are also links to various external agencies that can help guide players with responsible gaming. PokerStars clearly takes the issue of responsible gambling seriously, and it has created one of the most detailed guides in the industry.
Our Verdict
PokerStars fully deserves its reputation as the number one poker site and comes recommended for players in Ireland. Over the years, they’ve worked with major celebrities such as Rafael Nadal and Neymar Jr, and this solidifies the reputation of a brand known for offering solid security, attentive customer support, rapid payouts and a very impressive online poker experience.
We would like to see more ways to get in touch with customer support, but that’s a small complaint. If you’re itching for a good online poker experience in Ireland, PokerStars has all the crucial elements and can’t be beaten.
PokerStars Information
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Supported Platforms
Android
App
Desktop
Flash / No Download
iPhone
Mac
Mobile
Tablet
Windows
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FAQ
PokerStars will give you a welcome bonus package worth €40 if you sign up for a new account and make a deposit of at least €10. You will then unlock €40 in site credit as part of this deposit bonus offer, which is broken down into various Spin & Go tickets and cash bonuses.
The selection of games at PokerStars is superb. None of its rivals offer such a comprehensive suite of tournaments. It has an online poker game starting every second, spanning Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud, Omagi Hi-Lo, 2-7 Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw, 8 Game, HORSE and much more.
You can easily enjoy online poker games on your mobile device. There is also a “Home Games” product on the app, broadening out the range of options for mobile players. Just remember that it is difficult to use a HUD on a mobile device, multi-tabling can be tricky, and you need a strong connection.
The PokerStars poker site has a flawless security record. It hosts a larger poker room and more tournaments than any other operator, and it has never suffered any security issues. Just make sure you protect your account with a strong password.
PokerStars tend to approve pay-out requests rather quickly: you will receive your funds in less than an hour if you opt for MuchBetter, Neteller, Skrill or PayPal, while withdrawals to Visa cards, bank transfers and wire transfers can take at least three business days.
Contributors
Hi, I'm Roy Brindley
"A professional Poker player, TV pundit and over 30 years top level experience across all aspects of the gambling industry."
- Poker
- Greyhound Racing
- Formula 1
Reviewer since January 2012
