Bet-at-Home Poker Room Review
Poker Room Reviews > Bet-at-Home Poker Room Review
Pros
- Licensed in Malta
- Established brand (since 1999)
- Generous welcome bonus package
- Playtech iPoker network
- Multi-table support (up to 16 tables simultaneously)
Cons
- Geo-restricted; does not allow US players
- No live tournament events
- No support for Mac, Linux, or mobile devices (iOS and Android)
Table of Contents
History
While not as well-known as its competitors, Bet-at-Home.com has arguably one of the best poker platforms for beginners. The Bet-at-Home brand initially started its operations back in 1999 with an initial focus on sports betting. For the first couple of years, the brand built up its betting platform and by 2005 it also managed to launch its own online casino. With that said, it admittedly took a while for the brand to cozy up to the idea of starting its own poker platform. Bet-at-Home Poker was launched in 2006 and by that time, the competition was already in full swing with their poker rooms.
Despite this, Bet-at-Home still managed to carve a niche for itself among casual poker players. Thanks to a relatively weak player base, the brand’s proprietary poker platform offered great value for intermediates and players with higher skill levels. As with most proprietary platforms though, the brand eventually had to drop support, possibly owing to the cost of maintaining its poker rooms. Most poker room reviews about the brand usually bemoaned the lack of updates for its platform. Just recently though, the brand has jumped to Playtech’s iPoker network. The new platform still is very friendly to beginners/casual players while offering a better challenge for more experienced players.
Live Tournaments
Since Bet-at-Home has mostly been targeted at casual players, the brand hasn’t really seen a need to promote or run its own live tournaments prior to its inclusion in the iPoker network. Things eventually did change when the brand jumped ship. For example, in 2014, the brand held satellites for the 2015 iteration of the Irish Open. Players who joined had the chance to win packages worth €4,500 for the tournament that took place in Dublin. Prior to this, the brand also had the BarPokerSeries, which served as an unofficial satellite for WSOP 2014. Players who joined and won were given a package that included a ticket to the event worth $1,500. Unfortunately, 2015 would be the last time the brand would affiliate itself with the Irish Open as it has never featured any mention of the tournament series from 2016 up until the present day.
Online Tournaments
While the Bet-at-Home.com poker room isn’t partnered with a live tournament series anymore, it does have a host of online tournaments that its players can look forward to joining. For players who are still starting off, the poker room has a number of freerolls that they can join based on their VIP Status. As their name implies, players can join these freeroll tournaments without having to use real money. Depending on their VIP Status, these freerolls will require players to part with anywhere from 10 to as much as 400 loyalty points. Players who participate in these tournaments will be competing for prize pools that can range from €20 to €400.
Other than freeroll tournaments, players can also check out a number of guaranteed tournaments that are available on a daily basis. If they’re starting out and just want to have a feel of the competition then players can make the most of €50, €100, and/or €200 guaranteed tournaments that also happen to feature rebuys. As their name implies, the guaranteed prizes for these tournaments range from €50 to €200 with the buy-ins of only €.50 to €1 (rake + tournament fee). For players who are ready for higher stakes, there are tournaments like the €400 Deepstack Turbo, €500 Gtd Bounty Hunter, €500 Deepstack Turbo, and €500 Gtd – Rebuy that offer relatively high guaranteed prizes. With the increase in prizes though, players will also have to contend with slightly higher buy-ins that range from €2 to €5 or more.
Arguably the most appealing tournaments that Bet-at-Home.com Poker offers are the ones that have thousands of euros in guaranteed prizes. At only €10 for a single buy-in, players can test their skills on the €1,250 guaranteed Pinball tournament. Other than this, players who are raring for more cutthroat competition can opt to pay for the €20 total buy-in for the poker room’s €1,000 Gtd Bounty Hunter tournaments. For players who want tournaments that offer higher guaranteed prizes, the poker room has the €2,000 Phoenix and €2,000 Madness tournaments that have €10 and €20 buy-ins, respectively. If that’s too high, players can check out the €1000 Gtd Super Turbo Rebuy which has a €2 buy-in. If money is less of a concern, there are tournaments like €4,000 Brawl, €5,000 Special One, €5,000 Phoenix, and €8,000 Championship with buy-ins that start at €20 and can go up to a whopping €100. Finally, there’s the Sunday Lineup, which is a series of tournaments that start at 2:00PM and end at 1:00AM CET. The minimum guaranteed prize for a tournament in this series is €3,000 (for the €3,000 Starter) while the maximum would be €25,000 (for the €25,000 Sunday Premium). Depending on the tournaments, buy-ins can be as low as €3 or as high as €50.
Sponsored Poker Pros
Owing to Bet-at-Home.com Poker’s focus on casual players, it hasn’t had any need to sponsor professional poker pros. Moreover, since the poker room hasn’t participated or affiliated itself with major poker tournaments or live events recently, it also hasn’t found any need to form a team like PokerStars and other larger brands. As for teams or sponsorships that the brand might have had prior 2014/2015, there doesn’t seem to be any information about any based on our reviewers’ research.
Welcome Bonus
To welcome newly registered players, Bet-at-Home.com Poker provides them with a generous bonus package that they can use on their initial deposit. Players who take advantage of this will get a 100% match bonus that can go as high as €1,500. It should be noted though that the site isn’t going to release the bonus as one whole amount. Instead, the poker room will release the bonus in increments once players are able to generate enough Loyalty Points. As of this writing, the required Points needed by the poker room for the release of a €5 increment is 125.
Devices
Unlike most poker rooms, there are only a limited number of ways to get access to Bet-at-Home.com Poker. If they mainly use their desktops and/or laptops, players can download and install its poker room client to gain access to the tournaments and real-money games offered. What’s peculiar though is that the poker room doesn’t allow for Instant Play even though it uses Playtech’s iPoker platform. Due to the lack of Instant Play, Mac and Linux players will have no means of accessing the poker room since it also doesn’t have a dedicated poker client for the two operating systems. Those who prefer to play on the go also might end up disappointed due to the poker room’s lack of support for mobile devices. With that said, it’s highly likely that the poker room is still ironing out support for Instant Play (on desktop and mobile) as well as mobile apps in the future.
Licensing
As of this writing, Bet-at-Home.com Poker has a license issued and regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority. This means that players outside of the poker room’s target markets won’t be able to open accounts or even access the site. Included in this list are players from countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. It should also be noted that the poker room has geo-restrictions that automatically activate when it finds out a player is trying to access it from outside of its target markets.
Ownership
Bet-at-Home.com is one of the few brands that hasn’t seen that much change when it comes to its ownership. The company was established in Wels Upper Austria in 1999 by Franz Omer and Jochen Dickinger. While it was established in 1999, it wasn’t until 2000 when the brand eventually went online. Initially it offered only sports betting with its flagship service being Livescore.cc. The brand again relaunched its website in 2002 which then expanded to include an online casino in 2005. The year prior (2004) to the online casino expansion, the company transitioned to being a joint stock corporation.
By 2006, the brand launched its poker platform likely as a response to the growing popularity of online poker that started with Chris Moneymaker’s 2003 WSOP Main Event win. At the time, the corporation also had a 60% percent stake at Racebets GmbH and by 2009, it also held a majority vote as part of the BetClic Everest SAS Group. The company then found its shares listed in the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Jochen Dickinger, who functioned as the company’s CEO for most of the time that it had been around, announced back in 2012 that he was resigning. Replacing him was Michael Quatember who guided the company into another era with a website revamp in 2013 (which is also likely when the poker room shifted to Playtech’s iPoker network). That same year also saw the company launching a mobile version of the site to cater to the growing number of players who accessed online gambling sites on their mobile devices. Most recently (2017), the brand added casino games to its poker client (though Instant/Browser Play is yet to be implemented). The most notable move the brand made in 2018 was to release a dedicated Sports app for Android and iOS mobile devices.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Does Bet-at-Home.com Poker take US players?
Answer: Bet-at-Home.com Poker has an MGA license and as a result, the poker room is unable to accept players in the United States. Additionally, this poker client has its own geo-restriction feature that will not allow players to log in if it detects that they’re trying to access the poker room from a restricted country like the United States.
Question: Does the software allow for playing at multiple tables at once?
Answer: Since it makes use of Playtech’s iPoker platform, players should have no problems buying into multiple tables simultaneously on Bet-at-Home.com Poker. It should be noted though that players can only open up to 16 tables at the same time. If they opted to buy-in to a Speed Poker instance/game, players would be limited to a maximum of 10 tables (for that single instance).
Question: Is there a VIP & Loyalty rewards program for frequent players?
Answer: Players will get to enjoy a robust VIP program that will reward them for their frequent buy-ins. The VIP Program takes effect the moment players register and they’ll automatically be placed at the VIP Bronze level. To progress to the VIP Silver, VIP Gold, VIP Platinum, and VIP Diamond levels, players will then need to start accumulating Status Points/iPoints. The poker room will give players 5 of these Status Points for every €1 they generate in rakes and tournament fees. As they accumulate points and progress to higher VIP levels, players will then get to access/qualify for freeroll tournaments that offer exponentially higher guaranteed prizes.
Question: What are the wagering requirements of the signup bonus?
Answer: The Bet-at-Home.com Poker signup bonus is not automatically credited to players’ accounts and is instead released in €5 increments. To get the poker room to release an increment, players will need to accumulate at least 125 Loyalty Points. These Loyalty Points are in turn rewarded by the poker room in exchange for the rake and tournament fees a player generates. The poker room gives players 2 months to fully play through the signup bonus. In the event that the player fails to play through it in the given time, then the remaining amount of the bonus will be forfeited.
Question: Can I wager my welcome bonus on casino games or on the sportsbook?
Answer: Unfortunately, Bet-at-Home.com Poker has explicitly noted in its terms and conditions for the signup bonus that it cannot be used for its online casino or sportsbook sections. In the same manner, bonuses that they might get from the online casino or sportsbook won’t be applicable/usable on the poker room. This is likely due to the fact that the bonuses (and their wagering requirements) for these sections are fundamentally different. The poker room doesn’t automatically hand out the bonus amount to players and instead gives it to them incrementally. On the other hand, the online casino automatically gives the bonus amount to its players and they’ll then have to wager a certain multiple of that amount to withdraw any winnings that may have resulted from its use.
