€500
bonus
- €500 playthrough bonus
- Great no deposit bonus of €20
- Ideal for recreational players (No HUDs)
Highlights
- Reliable gaming provider
- Room created for amateurs
- Great for recreational players
- No table-select and bumhunt
Poker room details
- Network: Independent network
- License: Malta Gaming Authority
- Founded in: 1997
- unibet.com/poker
Payment methods
Unibet Poker Full Review
Unibet Poker is one of the big guns when it comes to online poker particularly in the European market. It has a solid reputation as a trustworthy poker site that is mainly geared towards the casual poker player.
Unibet was founded in 1997 by Anders Ström as an online betting and poker site. The site quickly grew in popularity and by 2001 it was available in 12 different languages. 2003 then saw Unibet add casino and live betting options to its services. A 2006 move to the Microgaming Poker Network saw Unibet’s player pool increase significantly. For the next 8 years, Unibet grew exponentially and by 2014 the company decided to go it alone and become a standalone poker room.
It was a bold move and one that paid off as the launch of its software client was a huge success. This was in part due to the company’s focus on recreational players — they banned all HUD software — and their decision to lower rake at lower limits.
In 2016, Unibet became a poker network in its own right after the acquisition of Stan James and Red 32. As a result, it has since become one of the most popular online poker providers in Europe. Unibet is one of the brands owned by Kindred Group, an iGaming behemoth. In this Unibet Poker review, you’ll find all the essentials when it comes to benefits & features of playing at Unibet. Let’s get started:
How to Sign-up
Signing-up to Unibet poker is straightforward and easy – just follow these quick steps to get started:
- Head to Unibet Poker here and hit the Register Now button.
- Select your poker bonus offer (there are usually three to choose from).
- Create an account and fill your personal details (you’ll need ID to verify your identity).
- Activate your Unibet account.
- Download the client or choose instant play.
- Play some poker.
While there are three bonus offers to choose from, you’re obviously going to opt for the poker one
Welcome bonus
Well, this is a pleasant surprise. Unibet offers two poker bonuses to new players, well above average that you get on poker rooms.
The first is a €24 bonus that comes in the form of 5 power tickets to Unibet poker tournaments.
The second is a €500 play through bonus — yes, that €500!
Just to note that this €500 Unibet Poker bonus may change sometime in the future as it was originally €200.
What’s so great about this play through bonus is that it doesn’t matter how much you deposit. So none of that 100% match deposit bonus stuff that we see on many other platforms.
The idea here is to gear this towards recreational players who perhaps don’t want to deposit a huge amount of money right from the off.
So how does it work?
Well it all depends on how much rake you pay. Pay a certain amount and you get part of your bonus released.
€2 rake — €1 of bonus released
€10 rake — €4 of bonus released
€50 rake — €15 of bonus released
€150 rake — €40 of bonus released
€550 rake — €140 of bonus released
€1,638 rake — €400 of bonus released
You have 60 days to work your way through the bonus.
We have to say, this is one of the most impressive bonuses out there for recreational players.
Unibet Poker also offers 4 x €500 freeroll tickets that you must use within 35 days of signing up.
Why is Unibet Poker so popular?
That welcome bonus is a great sweetener for new customers but it’s not the only thing that makes Unibet Poker so popular. The fact that the company has actively tried to cater for recreational poker players is possibly the main reason.
Here are a few others:
- No HUDs means softer games
- Unique software
- Extremely fast payouts for some methods
- Instant play option (no downloads required)
Unibet Poker UI
Unibet Poker software is very unique in that it’s of their own creation. They use a proprietary software from Relax Gaming. What you end up with is a client that lacks the cookie cutter template feel of many others. It’s easy to navigate and designed to catch the attention of the recreational player and make life as easy as possible. For this reason, serious players and grinders may find it a little jarring as it’s all fun and games rather than business-like.
One of the most significant features of the site is that you can change your online poker alias three times a day. That’s pretty amazing and renders the best efforts of any note takers completely pointless. There are no hand histories to download either. Like we said, the brand really focuses on the recreational aspect of the game.
You can download a client for both Windows and Mac. There’s also the instant play option that allows you to play through the site itself. For inexperienced players, this is a big deal as not everyone wants to download Unibet Poker software onto their PC. The instant play option is almost identical to the client version. You can play the same games, play four poker tables at a time, the graphics are identical, and it’s just as fast and works on practically every browser you can name.
Unibet Poker mobile app is available for all iOS and Android devices and it’s flawless. Once again, it’s almost the exact same as the main client and all the same games and options are available.
Best of all is the fact that all the software and the instant play options are completely glitch free. Some players have mentioned that it can be sluggish at times, but isn’t that an issue with pretty much every poker client or app?
All in all, the Unibet Poker UI is on the money.
Traffic overview and games
When it comes to traffic, Unibet Poker is up there with the best of them. In fact, the site routinely ranks in the top 10 online poker sites in the world for real money cash game traffic.
The seven-day average for players online is 750 with the peak being around 1,000. Now, this might not seem like a whole lot but you have to remember that Unibet Poker isn’t part of a major poker network like iPoker. Still, there are players coming to try their hand at poker also from Unibet sports betting and Unibet casino games.
The best times to play in Europe are the evening peak times where you usually find plenty of action at the lower stakes of cash games from NL4 right up to NL25. You can also find some Omaha cash games at Unibet.
Remember what we said about Unibet marketing towards recreational players? Well, that’s pretty clear when you hit the higher stakes. These cash game tables tend to have a lot less action. This is the same for the tournaments they run. There will be players but with such relatively low guarantees, you won’t see a whole lot of traffic. Again, this is why it’s great for the casual player.
As for poker variants in cash games, it’s quite simple — No Limit Texas Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha, and Banzai. Banzai is a short-stack & short-handed cash game where the players can only buy-in for 10 big blinds, which tends to create quite a lot of action.
You’ll find tons of multi-table tournaments for each variant throughout the week. But as we said, the action and juicy games tends to be at lower limits.
One of the things you’ll notice on Unibet is that there’s a great tournament schedule of daily freerolls that even those who have yet to make a deposit can get involved in. Many of these freeroll tournaments are bounty events. That means that you might win a few cents for knocking out a specific player. These types of tournaments are a great way to dip your toes into the site without investing.
Can you use tracking software such as HEM?
That’s a big fat ‘HELL, NO!’
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we’ll remind you that Unibet Poker is going after casual players and so they have placed an outright ban on HUDs (Heads-up Displays), making bum-hunting nearly impossible. Hence Unibet players can experience real money poker at it’s finest, without anyone having aid from tracking software.
Rake and rakeback at Unibet
Again, this is one area that Unibet Poker knocks it out of the park as far as casual players are concerned. When they made the decision to ban HUDs and target the recreational market, Unibet also lowered the rake for low limits.
As you can imagine, this went down very well indeed with casual online poker players as the site now boasts one of the lowest average rakes in the industry.
Generally speaking, rakes range from 1% up to 6% with stake rake cap at €1 at lower limits and €3 at NL400.
MTT fees are 10%, 2 seat Sit & Go tournaments are 3% and 5 seat Sit & Go tournaments are 5%.
What about Unibet Poker promotions then? You can play Unibet Open qualifiers to get a seat at their live poker series. Unlike most other poker sites, Unibet Poker doesn’t offer rakeback. Instead there are rewards available for players that complete challenges and missions, once again catering to casual players.
Restrictions
So this is where the waters get a little muddy.
Unibet has a gaming license issued by the Maltese Gaming Authority and separate licenses also in United Kingdom, France and Italy, BUT the license omits some of their own websites such as the .de and .eu sites. This is because online poker has yet to be legalised in some regions.
The Unibet site states that players from the following countries may have difficulties in accessing the site:
Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Belgium, Bulgaria, Burma, Canada, Cape Verde Islands, China, Cook Islands, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Ivory Coast, Japan, Laos, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Nauru, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, Nigeria, Niue, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe.
This suggests that players in those countries cannot register.
However, with regards to poker the Unibet site only mentions the following countries as being restricted:
Burma, Cuba, India, Libya, Macau, South Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.
Promotions and campaigns
The play-through first deposit bonus of €500 is hands down the best promotion that Unibet Poker offers. But as you can imagine, there’s more including the free €20 no deposit bonus along with the 4 x €500 freeroll tickets.
Unibet also has the Online Series Slot Spins with points or online series tournament tickets as prizes.
The HexaPro Jackpot offers huge multipliers for HexaPro Sit & Go games. And for all those multitable fiends there’s the MTT Player of the Year leaderboard with some pretty huge prizes.
The Unibet loyalty program is a set of challenges and missions that offers you the chance to win bonus points, rewards, tournament tickets, and even fancy new avatars. It’s pretty good fun and the minor challenges are super simple to complete and tend to be based on luck (be dealt a suited hand etc.)
Deposits and withdrawals
Unibet Poker’s deposit options depend on your location so you’ll need to register first and then log in to see what methods are available to you. Generally speaking, the deposit methods available are as follows:
Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, NETELLER, Skrill, EntroPay, POLi, Bank transfer, Paysafecard, Ukash
Deposit limits are usually set at €10 but for NETELLER it’s €20.
Withdrawal methods are similar and include the following creadit cards, e-wallets and other payment options:
Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, NETELLER, Skrill, EntroPay, POLi.
Payout times are among the best in the industry with most payments processed within a few hours. Any further delay depends only on the payment processor. For example, credit card withdrawals may only take a couple of days which is unheard of.
Unibet Sportsbook & Casino
Besides Poker, Unibet is well-known for their sportsbook and casino games. Here’s a quick video from Eric reviewing those aspects:
Unibet Poker FAQ
Unibet Poker is as safe as houses. This is one of the most reputable and customer-focused online poker websites out there. You’ll have no worries about rigged games or not getting your money on time.
Unibet does not offer rakeback. Instead, they offer rewards through daily challenges.
Unibet Poker offers a €500 playthrough deposit that is one of the best in the industry.
There’s also a €20 no deposit welcome bonus and 4 x €500 freerolls tickets.
Unibet Poker is currently only available in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. However, as more states push through online poker legislation, we fully expect to see more states added to the list.
Yes, you can indeed. Believe it or not, Canadian players at Unibet Poker can get an incredible CA$1,000 playthrough welcome bonus.
Yes, you can play Unibet Poker in the UK. New players get a £20 cash bonus and a £500 playthrough bonus.
None. Unibet Poker is a standalone poker site.
Yes, you can play Unibet Poker on a mobile web browser or you can download an iOS or Android app for your device.
Oh, yes. Unibet Poker runs a ton of daily and weekly tournaments including quite a lot of freerolls. However, guarantees tend to be a little on the low side.
Nope, not at all. This is why Unibet Poker is perfect for recreational players.
Unibet Poker has a great help section with lots of FAQs as well as an active community forum. If you can’t find an answer there, there’s a live chat feature or email contact information for customer support seven days a week. But, this is only available for registered users.
Author
Beasts Of Poker
Editorial team curates and publishes in-depth reviews and ratings of online poker sites by using their extensive industry experience. Content is created by both in-house team of experts and outside authority contributors.
Our rating
Pros
- Great no deposit bonus of €20
- Ideal for recreational players (No HUDs)
- Fast withdrawal options
Cons
- No tracker support
- No HUD support
- No Holdem HU tables
- No PLO HU tables
- No OFC Poker
Games and formats
- Hold 'em from NL4 € to NL400€
- Omaha from NL4 € to NL400€
- Banzai 6-max, from €1 to €20
- Classic SnG and Spins (HexaPro) from €0.1 — € 100
- MTT with guarantees up to €100,000 and buy-ins up to €100
Payment methods
- Bank Transfer
- Visa
- Mastercard
- Paysafecard
- Ukash
- Skrill
- Neteller
- ecoPayz
- PayPal
- EntroPay
- POLi
Restricted countries
The Unibet site states that players from the following countries may have difficulties in accessing the site:
Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Belgium, Bulgaria, Burma, Canada, Cape Verde Islands, China, Cook Islands, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Ivory Coast, Japan, Laos, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Nauru, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, Nigeria, Niue, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe.
This suggests that players in those countries cannot register.
However, with regards to poker the Unibet site only mentions the following countries as being restricted:
Burma, Cuba, India, Libya, Macau, South Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.