Review of Empire Poker by Jesse McLean |
February 4, 2012 |
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Reviewer:
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Established:
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1997
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Headquarters:
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Gibraltar
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Email:
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info@empirepoker.com
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Website:
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www.empirepoker.com
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Software:
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Party Gaming
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Americans:
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no
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Players:
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4200 (average)
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Banking:
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Credit Card, Click2Pay, EntroPay, eWalletXpress, InstaDebit, Moneybookers, Neteller, Ukash, Western Union, Bank Transfer, Citadel, PayPal
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Games:
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Texas Hold'em, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo
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Empire Poker is a 'skin' of Party, meaning they are essencially the same website, with the same player base. Empire Poker used to be the biggest online poker room before they stopped accepting American players a few years ago. They still sit in the top 3 most active poker rooms.
Empire's cashier is very quick. Deposits are instant (no surprises there) and withdrawals are almost as fast. Typically it is less than 12 hours for neteller, and is usually about 3 or 4. This is very pleasing, especially since there have been a lot of limited term bonuses recently and I hope they'll be offering more to try and hold on to the European and Canadian players.
Another good feature at Empire is the daily $500 Freeroll. This is open to the first 500 players. Empire have a lot of other promotions like this. Their new player's club (earn points to get merchandise or tournament entries) is pretty much the same as everywhere else, but their Bad Beat Jackpot is huge (one lucky table recently hit $739,622 - supposedly the largest Bad Beat Jackpot in poker history). Personally I missed a $600k jackpot when my royal beat a full house rather than Quads - on a double paired board, come on!) so I'm not a fan of jackpot games at the moment.
Unfortunately, Empire customer support isn't the quickest or the best. Among my online poker friends, "working for Empire Support" has come to mean someone is a few cards short of a full deck. The emails that are sent quickly tend to have a lot of junk information in there rather than the answer you actually need.
This can be a problem, because Empire's software is not the best in the business. There are several small annoying features about it which you'll find out if you play there - my pet hate is the way the lobby pops up when you close a table. The color scheme is just plain NASTY. You can't pick your own avatar, but the buttons are easy to find, and everything works pretty well, so I can put up with the green and yellow colour scheme (it's easily modifiable though thankfully).
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Bonus Match:
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30%
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Bonus Max:
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$150
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Deposit Bonus Information:
Empire poker offer a 30% match bonus on first deposits (up to $100 in bonus cash). It earns out nice and quickly, especially if you play two tables (or indeed up to four tables) at once, which is relatively easy with their software. The $8 an hour figure is per table, which is pretty damn good.
Last Updated: 11/04/2011
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ONLINE POKER REVIEWS
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 | 9.5 | (8.7) |
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 | 9.2 | (7.3) |
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| 8.8 | (7.5) |
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| 8.8 | (8.0) |
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 | 8.0 | (6.4) |
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| 7.5 | (8.0) |
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| 7.5 | (6.5) |
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 | 7.2 | (7.8) |
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| 7.0 | (8.1) |
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| 7.0 | (7.6) |
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| 6.8 | (7.0) |
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| 6.8 | (6.0) |
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Chart Definitions
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| Deposit Bonus |
Ratings |
Match
How much free money the poker room will give you as a percentage of your first total deposit.
Max
The maximum amout of bonus money you can receive with your first deposit.
Online
The average number of active online cash players the poker room has at any one time.
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Software
This is the quality of the program on which the poker program is run. This rating should consider the understandability and usability of the software, plus how quick and helpful their support services are.
Players
A rating of how many players there are, and how easy it is to beat the typical low-limit holdem game against the average one.
Payout
This is a rating of how quickly the poker site processes
withdrawal requests and the overall quality of bonuses rewarded.
Tournys
This rating should consider the frequency, relative value, and organization of both sit-and-go and special tournaments held.
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