Sky Poker Review

Why Choose Sky Poker?

Sky Poker is part of the leading UK broadcaster's betting empire, which also includes a Casino, Bingo and Sportsbetting site. Sky's software has been revamped recently, making games even easier to play than ever. The annoying lack of full-ring games is still an annoyance, but there's enough action to keep casual players happy.

Pros

• Licensed in the United Kingdom and part of the Sky empire
• Soft cash games and tournaments
• See your online hands discussed live on Sky Poker's TV channel
• Solid download app for iOS mobile players
• Good promotions and rewards
• Satellites and qualifiers into the live Sky Poker UKPC
• Top welcome bonus worth 200% up to £500

Cons

• Lack of full-ring games
• No Android app available
• Not many variants other than Hold'em and Omaha

Welcome Bonus

New players are well-catered for at Sky Poker. New depositors can load up £500 maximum and earn 200% on that if they get through enough games. Finding traffic may be an issue, though, so some sensible cash game hunting is a good idea. £10 of bonus cash is released for every 250 points earned.

As well as the deposit match, new players get £10 worth of tourney tokens absolutely free. There are also 500 Poker Points to get your VIP program started.

Bonuses and Promotions

To cater for its TV fans and casual players, Sky Poker runs some interesting promotions.

For tourney players, the Final Table Jackpot gives you the chance to win a jackpot worth £5,000. If you final-table the Main and Mini events in the same night, a jackpot is yours. That's no mean feat for tournaments that attract over 1,000 runners apiece.

Sky Poker has long hosted big-money live events of its own. The Sky Poker UK Poker Championship guarantees £1 million, and includes tournaments with buy-ins ranging from £500 to £2,000. Satellites run on the site daily if the direct buy-ins are a little out of your budget.

VIPs can take advantage of the Priority Club. Earn 10,000 points to gain entry and get access to exclusive benefits. Priority Club members can get rakeback (10% to 20%, depending on your Priority level) and access to £3,000 worth of exclusive freerolls every month. There are also £1,000 Rewards Freerolls, with seats into the UKPC up for grabs.

Software

Once upon a time, Sky Poker was the instant-play software of choice. It was basic but at least you could log-in on-site and get playing straight away.

The site has undergone something of a revamp recently. You can still enjoy games via your browser, whether you're using a Mac or PC, but there's now a download client for PC users.

A bugbear of the old Sky Poker was that tables couldn't be resized. That's now been fixed, so you can multi-table to your heart's content. Mini-View options and smarter table tiling are now offered, as is an Auto Top-Up feature which reloads your stack once you go below a certain balance.

Customer Support

The Customer Support team is on-hand 24/6 to answer queries and problems. There's a handy Help & Support thread on Twitter which is pretty useful. United Kingdom players can also get in touch with the site via email, phone or Instant Chat.

Cash Games

Sky has a unique cash game on offer at the site. 'Spin Up' cash tables limit the big blinds you can sit down with (3-10 big blinds) and give players something to do between tournaments.

If 6-max is your thing, you'll enjoy Sky Poker. In fact, you don't really have much of a choice, as 6-max is all you can play.

Micro and low-stakes games are popular, especially the £0.10/£0.20 No Limit Hold'em games. Play some interesting hands and you may get your face (and voice) on a televised Sky Poker show. Play really badly, and you may get some ribbing from experts like Neil Channing and Tony 'Tikay' Kendall.

Tournaments and Sit 'N Go's

The Quick play function in the lobby lets you filter out the games you really want. A good range of tournaments run daily, with the televised tourneys weighted towards, understandably.

The Bounty Hunter carries a guaranteed prizepool of £500 and costs just £22 to enter. The bigger televised Bounty Hunter has a rather better GTD pool of £10,000, and a £33 buy-in. Players can play and watch the analysis streamed live on the poker site - just look for the 'TV' tab next to selected tournaments.

Sit 'n Go's run from 30p to £220, with a lot of weight towards Heads-Up and Double Your Money games. On a more regular level, you won't find any Omaha tournaments, so this is certainly a poker site for the Hold'em enthusiast.