H
Hsac
Rock Star
Bronze Level
I read the Bet Online Review, and couldn't find a posting date. It felt a little outdated. I recently wrote a review of Bet Online myself, for my manuscript, with my personal spins. They are not meant to reflect on or criticize CardsChat's review. These are my own personal experiences and opinions. Will others chime in and tell about your own personal experiences of Bet Online, good or bad?
Bet Online is one of several online poker rooms I vetted before investing heavy money and settling down to play some serious poker.
Regarding Bet Online, giving them my money was easy (usually is). All I did was go to betonline.ag, fill out the questions regarding name, email and date of birth, then click the big-green JOIN NOW button. Can’t miss it. It’s big and green like the green lights at traffic signals that let you know when it’s safe to proceed into an intersection. Then they took my credit card information. Note: there was a disclaimer that stated sometimes a difficulty arises with credit cards, specifically with the banks that issue them, but they’ve never had a problem with bitcoins. My first mild response was, “What the f**k is a bitcoin?” I clicked on the visa tab and proceeded to enter my VISA info. There was no difficulty. It slipped right through and I was accepted and approved quicker than snot sliding down a windowpane. I only bought in for the minimum, $25 with a hefty $1.88 tacked on for performing this service of giving them my money. A $1.88 I don’t expect to ever get back.
I guess there is no additional charge tacked on if you deposit and withdrawal your money on the site with bitcoins. Considering the minimum deposit and withdrawal for bitcoins is $20 with no fees, and they charge fees for cards, $1.88 for minimum deposit and $80 for cashier’s check with minimum $500 withdrawal, it might be beneficial to find out what a bitcoin is. As the old saying goes, when in Rome.
I figured if this is the site I choose, I can always add more to my stake later. I created my username (Hsac) and downloaded the poker software. Before I knew it, I was staring into the huge lobby of Bet Online. And when I say huge, I mean HUGE! Then again, the reason it looked so big could have something to do with having my computer hooked up to my 70” television.
I’d like to start my evaluation of this site with a positive before getting into my gripes. When you enter a game on Bet Online, you are automatically seated at front and center, where I imagine most players, including myself, like to be seated as compared to having to move your position before the game starts. It might be a minor convenience, but it’s appreciated.
Gripe #1: On top of the Lobby screen I quickly clicked on the poker button. I set my filters for real money sit-and-go tournaments. All tournaments were displayed within my criteria. Immediately, I noticed the minimum buy in for a game was $1.50, as compared to $1.10 for most other poker sites. Stakes management is everything in this game if you expect to have even a modicum of success. This means your minimum buy-in for this site would have to be $75 as compared to $55, at 50X the minimum buy-in. I prefer a little more cushion, so I prefer having 100X the minimum buy-in for the games I play. That would make the minimum buy-in for this site $150, as compared to $110 for other sites. True, I bought into another site a year and a half ago for $25 and now have over a $600 balance, but that is a rarity. You need a cushion for those bad beats and losing streaks.
Don’t snicker at the $600. Think of it this way, if I had bought in for $10,000 instead of $25, percentage wise I’d have almost a quarter a million dollars. Hey, at those percentages, maybe in a year and a half from now I’ll have $14,400 in my account. Yeah, right. That’s not quite the way it works for as the stake gets bigger the percentages get smaller, but it’s nice to fantasize. By the way, the largest game was for $60 buy-in which if you follow my advice would need at least a $6,000 stake to play. I’ve seen larger active buy-ins on other sites with more activity than I noticed on this site.
Gripe #2: My first gripe was that their minimum buy-in for a game was $1.50, as compared to $1.10 on other sites, and my second gripe is out of that $1.50, $.20 goes to Bet Online for the privilege of playing the game. That’s a 15.4% vigorish! Other sites charge 10% and 5% respectively, depending on the game. And that brings me back to the $1.88 transaction fee. Come on guys, in just playing 10 minimum games for a $1.50 each you’d get more than your $1.88 back. In their defense I believe most of the other sites also charge for a credit card transaction. On this site the vigorish goes down as the buy-ins go up, but that doesn’t help the little guy who is just starting out. Well, I guess getting an education is expensive, and in my opinion that extra 5.4% is mighty expensive.
Gripe #3: After getting over my initial shock of the vigorish, I decided it was time to play. There was a Sit-and-Go game I found particularly interesting, called a “Fast Double or Nothing” with 8 players. That meant I would only have to outlast 4 out of 8 players as compared to 6 out of 9 in a regular game. I didn’t like the idea that it was a fast game, meaning 8-minute blinds as compared to 10, but Bet Online had no regular 10-minute blind games in the minimum entry level. In fact, they don’t have any 10-minute blind games at any level. Successful card players spend most of their time analyzing players while folding most hands especially during the low-blind periods and waiting for the right cards and opportunities to play, and that takes time. I didn’t like giving up those 2 minutes between blind increases but didn’t have a choice. That was a minor nuisance, but not my gripe. I clicked on the big-green “REGISTERING” button and clicked to register for the game and was promptly notified that I had insufficient funds to play the game. “What the f**k!” I had just deposited $25. Sure enough, in the upper right-hand corner of the poker lobby was stated, “Balance: 0.”
Okay, I looked through the site but couldn’t find my money. I went to my email to verify the receipt for my deposit, thinking I bought into a scam, some imposter pretending to be Bet Online. The receipt looked legitimate. On it stated, “Please contact Customer Service…for any questions about your recent transaction. We are here to help.” I sent an email to cashier@betonline.org and asked about my money. Three days later, after not receiving a response, I called them at 1-888-426-3661. To their benefit, I was shocked when a representative immediately answered without any waiting. I guess I’ve grown accustom to waiting on the phone. A quick response is rare nowadays. He apologized for Customer Service not returning my email with the excuse that they were very busy, and then he walked me through the process of getting my money to play poker.
In the upper-right hand corner is a green $ sign button (I guess this site is big on green buttons when they want you to click). So, I clicked on it. Apparently, there are two sections to the site. A Sport section and a Poker section. I guess your deposit automatically goes to the Sport section. And sure enough, there was a button that read, “TRANSFER TO POKER.” I probably missed it because the button was transparent, and not green. I clicked on it, transferred my mega funds from Sport to Poker, and was ready to play. My gripe #3 is that Bet Online didn’t return my email, ever, and I lost 3 days of playing because of it. So, if you ever join the site and want to play Poker for real money, you now know what to do.
Gripe #4: After registering, I noticed there was no indication showing on the game panel that I had registered for that game. The letters on that game become bold type, but they’re hard to distinguish from the letters in the other games unless you move your curser over and highlight it. Sure, when you exit, the site tells you in tiny black print that you’re registered in a game and asks if you’re sure you want to leave, but who pays attention to that crap especially when the letters aren’t in bold-flashing-neon-red. That’s a hint for Bet Online managers and programmers. I figured this would come back to bite me in the ass someday.
I registered and started playing in the $1.50, “Fast 9’s” and the $1.50, “Fast Double or Nothing” games. First thing I noticed was a 10% ante that starts in the 10/20 blinds. Antes usually begin around the 150/300 blinds on other sites. I don’t see how an extra 16 chips in the pot promotes play, and I found having 2 chips removed from my stack every hand was a bit disconcerting, though it possibly won’t bother most players. In the ‘Fast 9’s” game I got taken out when I flopped a set and called an all-in bet by someone who was bluffing with absolutely nothing. Guess he was trying to steal the six-bet I placed before the flop when I was trying to get the five players in the hand down closer to one to increase my odds of winning, or downright win if they all folded. He proceeded to get perfect runners on the turn and river to make an inside straight. “F****r!” In the “Fast Double or Nothing” game I had pocket aces and my all-in was called by an idiot with pocket fours. Sure enough, he flopped a four. “Son-of-a-b***h!”
Well, that’s exactly why I recommend depositing a minimum of 100 times your maximum buy-in, to get through these times when the Poker Gods disfavor you. My thoughts were if this continues, my stay on Bet Online will be very short. After I took a little time to calm down, I reregistered again in both games. This time I placed second in the “Fast 9’s” game and outlasted four others in the “Fast Double or Nothing” game to come out a whopping $.11 ahead for a total balance of $25.11. Hey, it’s better than a $3 loss! Following my philosophy that it’s always better to quit while you’re ahead, especially after coming from behind, I was done with my first session.
On the second session I won a “Fast Double or Nothing” game and finished off with a balance of $26.21.
On the third session I opened the site and noticed my beginning balance was $24.71. “How the f**k could that be?” I take rigorous notes of my poker action, and verified I’d left with $26.21 the previous day. My first thought was that someone had hacked into my account and played with my money, then after careful consideration I realized what had happened. I’d bought into a “Fast 9’s” game the day before at the same time I’d bought into the “Fast Double or Nothing” game. The 9’s game never came up while I was playing the Double or Nothing so once the game was over, I’d forgotten I’d registered in the 9’s and exited out. I wince at the thought that I was a ghost on the table for an entire game. I knew that would come back to, “bite me in the ass.” Luckily, I placed second in a 9’s game and won in the Double game and finished off the day with $27.82 and gave up dwelling over the fact it could have been $29.32. I knew there was a problem and didn’t do anything to alleviate it, so it was my bad. Now, whenever I register in a game, I double click on the game registration, the Details screen pops up and I click on the “Click here to see the list of players” in red type. Then I minimize the screen. Once the game starts, I delete the screen. I now make it a point to check the minimized screens before exiting the site. Problem solved, but I resent having to take the extra precautions to compensate for my poor eyesight and feeble memory.
After 7 days of play, I had $32.52 as a balance. That’s a return on my investment of 30.08% in just a week. Annually, that equates to a 1,560% return on my investment. True, you can’t expect things to always go this well, but even if you halve it to 800%, that’s a hell of a return. You can even halve it again to 400%. There are not many investments in this world where you can expect that kind of annual return and have fun while doing it.
Gripe #5: I spoke with a representative on live chat. There are no freeroll tournaments available. They have them, but she told me they were only available for affiliates which is quite surprising considering the amount of vigorish they charge to play a game. I specifically asked her, “So, I understand I do not qualify, nor will I ever qualify for a freeroll tournament?” She answered, “Sorry, not at this time.” That sucks. Freerolls are a good way of adding to your balance over time. Geez, even if it’s just a weekly $200 or $100 or $50 or daily $20 or $10-dollar freeroll. A freeroll is a freeroll and can be of great benefit to the beginner.
I found out the affiliates they’re talking about are poker clubs like PokerSource.com and CardsChat.com. I visited those sites. PokerSource.com required me to join another poker site, one that I have never belonged to, and jump through a bunch of hoops to qualify for getting the passwords to play in their freerolls. I don’t need to spend good money and join another poker site. I did download the software and visited a few of the sites they recommended, like Americas Cardroom and a few others, but nothing really grabbed my interest enough to make me want to join. The other affiliate, CardsChat.com, is more of a chat room for poker. You can join for free and are immediately given access to some of the smaller freerolls on various sites, one of which I already belong. Then, after you submit 25 quality posts you get access to more freerolls. After 65 quality posts you get access to their primo freerolls. Hey, I can do that! After all, my college degree is in English, and I am a published writer, but I don’t know what they mean by quality. Maybe no cussing, which means half my posts will probably be disqualified. But I’m working on it. I think after 5 more posts I’ll be to the next tier, maybe, and then 40 more and freerolls here I come.
Gripe #6: In my opinion, I find the Bet Online Poker screen where you play the games against other players to be a little cluttered. For instance, in the lower left corner there is a dialog box that follows the game play by play. Quite frankly, I could care less what anyone else has to say, and the one time I went to use the box when I missed out on what hand the last pot was won with, I tried to scroll through it. With every person’s raise and fold and everything else recorded in it I gave up on finding the information that I was looking for. I can see the game and already know who did what. Just a reference to who won the pots in succession with information on amount and winning hand would suffice. The box was virtually worthless for my purpose. It is distracting and I’ve been looking for a way to eliminate it, so far without success. I’ve been able to almost blank it out, but not eliminate it. On the lower-middle and right parts of the table there are the usual pop-up sliders and buttons to fold or bet or raise. They have the check or fold button when you have the big blind, but there is also a fold button. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the fold button when nobody raised, and the bets came back around to me while I was sitting on the blind. Immediately, a popup appeared telling me it wouldn’t cost anything to stay in the hand and it gave me a choice of canceling my fold. Of course, I cancelled my fold. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to see a flop that they already paid for? In my opinion a button that will never be used only adds more to the clutter.
The scuttlebutt around the internet is a lot of the sport players with minimal poker experience on Bet Online often go to the poker side to have some fun. This is a good thing, maybe even a great thing for sophisticated card players, if it’s true. During the week I played, I found some of the players to be highly predictable, with an occasional good player or two in each game for the minimum buy-ins. As my father-in-law used to say regarding his weekly poker games at home, “Whenever Dr. Beker bets, you fold.” The tables were also full of loose and passive calling stations, some even calling bets to the bitter end after flopping a pair that had two over cards on the table, and some overly aggressive players. Aggression without restraint is almost as bad as no aggression at all. Whether or not there’s more on this site than others, I couldn’t tell you. Those kinds of players seem to exist everywhere. But if the scuttlebutt is true then there should be plenty of fodder for the sophisticated players to move up the ranks and get ahead. Most often during this week of play, I found myself sitting at the table with a chip stack more than double the size of any other stack, simply waiting for the bubble-boy to be revealed. So yes, the scuttlebutt might be true, and if it is then this fact may easily negate all my gripes and make this site attractive for sophisticated players. And if you are disciplined enough to use my charts properly, you will be a sophisticated player regardless of experience.
Bet Online is an attractive site and as far as I could tell it runs very smoothly, but because of the high vigorish, and the higher amount it takes to buy-in to assure a modicum of success and the lack of 10-minute blinds, not to mention the lack of small freerolls, Bet Online, though considered safe and sound, is not my #1 pick for a poker site, and probably won't be my #2 pick, either. I hesitate to recommend it, especially for beginners. But I do favor the “Fast Double or Nothing” 8 handed games. It would be perfect if they’d just drop the fast.
Bet Online First Impressions
Regarding Bet Online, giving them my money was easy (usually is). All I did was go to betonline.ag, fill out the questions regarding name, email and date of birth, then click the big-green JOIN NOW button. Can’t miss it. It’s big and green like the green lights at traffic signals that let you know when it’s safe to proceed into an intersection. Then they took my credit card information. Note: there was a disclaimer that stated sometimes a difficulty arises with credit cards, specifically with the banks that issue them, but they’ve never had a problem with bitcoins. My first mild response was, “What the f**k is a bitcoin?” I clicked on the visa tab and proceeded to enter my VISA info. There was no difficulty. It slipped right through and I was accepted and approved quicker than snot sliding down a windowpane. I only bought in for the minimum, $25 with a hefty $1.88 tacked on for performing this service of giving them my money. A $1.88 I don’t expect to ever get back.
I guess there is no additional charge tacked on if you deposit and withdrawal your money on the site with bitcoins. Considering the minimum deposit and withdrawal for bitcoins is $20 with no fees, and they charge fees for cards, $1.88 for minimum deposit and $80 for cashier’s check with minimum $500 withdrawal, it might be beneficial to find out what a bitcoin is. As the old saying goes, when in Rome.
I figured if this is the site I choose, I can always add more to my stake later. I created my username (Hsac) and downloaded the poker software. Before I knew it, I was staring into the huge lobby of Bet Online. And when I say huge, I mean HUGE! Then again, the reason it looked so big could have something to do with having my computer hooked up to my 70” television.
I’d like to start my evaluation of this site with a positive before getting into my gripes. When you enter a game on Bet Online, you are automatically seated at front and center, where I imagine most players, including myself, like to be seated as compared to having to move your position before the game starts. It might be a minor convenience, but it’s appreciated.
Gripe #1: On top of the Lobby screen I quickly clicked on the poker button. I set my filters for real money sit-and-go tournaments. All tournaments were displayed within my criteria. Immediately, I noticed the minimum buy in for a game was $1.50, as compared to $1.10 for most other poker sites. Stakes management is everything in this game if you expect to have even a modicum of success. This means your minimum buy-in for this site would have to be $75 as compared to $55, at 50X the minimum buy-in. I prefer a little more cushion, so I prefer having 100X the minimum buy-in for the games I play. That would make the minimum buy-in for this site $150, as compared to $110 for other sites. True, I bought into another site a year and a half ago for $25 and now have over a $600 balance, but that is a rarity. You need a cushion for those bad beats and losing streaks.
Don’t snicker at the $600. Think of it this way, if I had bought in for $10,000 instead of $25, percentage wise I’d have almost a quarter a million dollars. Hey, at those percentages, maybe in a year and a half from now I’ll have $14,400 in my account. Yeah, right. That’s not quite the way it works for as the stake gets bigger the percentages get smaller, but it’s nice to fantasize. By the way, the largest game was for $60 buy-in which if you follow my advice would need at least a $6,000 stake to play. I’ve seen larger active buy-ins on other sites with more activity than I noticed on this site.
Gripe #2: My first gripe was that their minimum buy-in for a game was $1.50, as compared to $1.10 on other sites, and my second gripe is out of that $1.50, $.20 goes to Bet Online for the privilege of playing the game. That’s a 15.4% vigorish! Other sites charge 10% and 5% respectively, depending on the game. And that brings me back to the $1.88 transaction fee. Come on guys, in just playing 10 minimum games for a $1.50 each you’d get more than your $1.88 back. In their defense I believe most of the other sites also charge for a credit card transaction. On this site the vigorish goes down as the buy-ins go up, but that doesn’t help the little guy who is just starting out. Well, I guess getting an education is expensive, and in my opinion that extra 5.4% is mighty expensive.
Gripe #3: After getting over my initial shock of the vigorish, I decided it was time to play. There was a Sit-and-Go game I found particularly interesting, called a “Fast Double or Nothing” with 8 players. That meant I would only have to outlast 4 out of 8 players as compared to 6 out of 9 in a regular game. I didn’t like the idea that it was a fast game, meaning 8-minute blinds as compared to 10, but Bet Online had no regular 10-minute blind games in the minimum entry level. In fact, they don’t have any 10-minute blind games at any level. Successful card players spend most of their time analyzing players while folding most hands especially during the low-blind periods and waiting for the right cards and opportunities to play, and that takes time. I didn’t like giving up those 2 minutes between blind increases but didn’t have a choice. That was a minor nuisance, but not my gripe. I clicked on the big-green “REGISTERING” button and clicked to register for the game and was promptly notified that I had insufficient funds to play the game. “What the f**k!” I had just deposited $25. Sure enough, in the upper right-hand corner of the poker lobby was stated, “Balance: 0.”
Okay, I looked through the site but couldn’t find my money. I went to my email to verify the receipt for my deposit, thinking I bought into a scam, some imposter pretending to be Bet Online. The receipt looked legitimate. On it stated, “Please contact Customer Service…for any questions about your recent transaction. We are here to help.” I sent an email to cashier@betonline.org and asked about my money. Three days later, after not receiving a response, I called them at 1-888-426-3661. To their benefit, I was shocked when a representative immediately answered without any waiting. I guess I’ve grown accustom to waiting on the phone. A quick response is rare nowadays. He apologized for Customer Service not returning my email with the excuse that they were very busy, and then he walked me through the process of getting my money to play poker.
In the upper-right hand corner is a green $ sign button (I guess this site is big on green buttons when they want you to click). So, I clicked on it. Apparently, there are two sections to the site. A Sport section and a Poker section. I guess your deposit automatically goes to the Sport section. And sure enough, there was a button that read, “TRANSFER TO POKER.” I probably missed it because the button was transparent, and not green. I clicked on it, transferred my mega funds from Sport to Poker, and was ready to play. My gripe #3 is that Bet Online didn’t return my email, ever, and I lost 3 days of playing because of it. So, if you ever join the site and want to play Poker for real money, you now know what to do.
Gripe #4: After registering, I noticed there was no indication showing on the game panel that I had registered for that game. The letters on that game become bold type, but they’re hard to distinguish from the letters in the other games unless you move your curser over and highlight it. Sure, when you exit, the site tells you in tiny black print that you’re registered in a game and asks if you’re sure you want to leave, but who pays attention to that crap especially when the letters aren’t in bold-flashing-neon-red. That’s a hint for Bet Online managers and programmers. I figured this would come back to bite me in the ass someday.
I registered and started playing in the $1.50, “Fast 9’s” and the $1.50, “Fast Double or Nothing” games. First thing I noticed was a 10% ante that starts in the 10/20 blinds. Antes usually begin around the 150/300 blinds on other sites. I don’t see how an extra 16 chips in the pot promotes play, and I found having 2 chips removed from my stack every hand was a bit disconcerting, though it possibly won’t bother most players. In the ‘Fast 9’s” game I got taken out when I flopped a set and called an all-in bet by someone who was bluffing with absolutely nothing. Guess he was trying to steal the six-bet I placed before the flop when I was trying to get the five players in the hand down closer to one to increase my odds of winning, or downright win if they all folded. He proceeded to get perfect runners on the turn and river to make an inside straight. “F****r!” In the “Fast Double or Nothing” game I had pocket aces and my all-in was called by an idiot with pocket fours. Sure enough, he flopped a four. “Son-of-a-b***h!”
Well, that’s exactly why I recommend depositing a minimum of 100 times your maximum buy-in, to get through these times when the Poker Gods disfavor you. My thoughts were if this continues, my stay on Bet Online will be very short. After I took a little time to calm down, I reregistered again in both games. This time I placed second in the “Fast 9’s” game and outlasted four others in the “Fast Double or Nothing” game to come out a whopping $.11 ahead for a total balance of $25.11. Hey, it’s better than a $3 loss! Following my philosophy that it’s always better to quit while you’re ahead, especially after coming from behind, I was done with my first session.
On the second session I won a “Fast Double or Nothing” game and finished off with a balance of $26.21.
On the third session I opened the site and noticed my beginning balance was $24.71. “How the f**k could that be?” I take rigorous notes of my poker action, and verified I’d left with $26.21 the previous day. My first thought was that someone had hacked into my account and played with my money, then after careful consideration I realized what had happened. I’d bought into a “Fast 9’s” game the day before at the same time I’d bought into the “Fast Double or Nothing” game. The 9’s game never came up while I was playing the Double or Nothing so once the game was over, I’d forgotten I’d registered in the 9’s and exited out. I wince at the thought that I was a ghost on the table for an entire game. I knew that would come back to, “bite me in the ass.” Luckily, I placed second in a 9’s game and won in the Double game and finished off the day with $27.82 and gave up dwelling over the fact it could have been $29.32. I knew there was a problem and didn’t do anything to alleviate it, so it was my bad. Now, whenever I register in a game, I double click on the game registration, the Details screen pops up and I click on the “Click here to see the list of players” in red type. Then I minimize the screen. Once the game starts, I delete the screen. I now make it a point to check the minimized screens before exiting the site. Problem solved, but I resent having to take the extra precautions to compensate for my poor eyesight and feeble memory.
After 7 days of play, I had $32.52 as a balance. That’s a return on my investment of 30.08% in just a week. Annually, that equates to a 1,560% return on my investment. True, you can’t expect things to always go this well, but even if you halve it to 800%, that’s a hell of a return. You can even halve it again to 400%. There are not many investments in this world where you can expect that kind of annual return and have fun while doing it.
Gripe #5: I spoke with a representative on live chat. There are no freeroll tournaments available. They have them, but she told me they were only available for affiliates which is quite surprising considering the amount of vigorish they charge to play a game. I specifically asked her, “So, I understand I do not qualify, nor will I ever qualify for a freeroll tournament?” She answered, “Sorry, not at this time.” That sucks. Freerolls are a good way of adding to your balance over time. Geez, even if it’s just a weekly $200 or $100 or $50 or daily $20 or $10-dollar freeroll. A freeroll is a freeroll and can be of great benefit to the beginner.
I found out the affiliates they’re talking about are poker clubs like PokerSource.com and CardsChat.com. I visited those sites. PokerSource.com required me to join another poker site, one that I have never belonged to, and jump through a bunch of hoops to qualify for getting the passwords to play in their freerolls. I don’t need to spend good money and join another poker site. I did download the software and visited a few of the sites they recommended, like Americas Cardroom and a few others, but nothing really grabbed my interest enough to make me want to join. The other affiliate, CardsChat.com, is more of a chat room for poker. You can join for free and are immediately given access to some of the smaller freerolls on various sites, one of which I already belong. Then, after you submit 25 quality posts you get access to more freerolls. After 65 quality posts you get access to their primo freerolls. Hey, I can do that! After all, my college degree is in English, and I am a published writer, but I don’t know what they mean by quality. Maybe no cussing, which means half my posts will probably be disqualified. But I’m working on it. I think after 5 more posts I’ll be to the next tier, maybe, and then 40 more and freerolls here I come.
Gripe #6: In my opinion, I find the Bet Online Poker screen where you play the games against other players to be a little cluttered. For instance, in the lower left corner there is a dialog box that follows the game play by play. Quite frankly, I could care less what anyone else has to say, and the one time I went to use the box when I missed out on what hand the last pot was won with, I tried to scroll through it. With every person’s raise and fold and everything else recorded in it I gave up on finding the information that I was looking for. I can see the game and already know who did what. Just a reference to who won the pots in succession with information on amount and winning hand would suffice. The box was virtually worthless for my purpose. It is distracting and I’ve been looking for a way to eliminate it, so far without success. I’ve been able to almost blank it out, but not eliminate it. On the lower-middle and right parts of the table there are the usual pop-up sliders and buttons to fold or bet or raise. They have the check or fold button when you have the big blind, but there is also a fold button. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the fold button when nobody raised, and the bets came back around to me while I was sitting on the blind. Immediately, a popup appeared telling me it wouldn’t cost anything to stay in the hand and it gave me a choice of canceling my fold. Of course, I cancelled my fold. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to see a flop that they already paid for? In my opinion a button that will never be used only adds more to the clutter.
The scuttlebutt around the internet is a lot of the sport players with minimal poker experience on Bet Online often go to the poker side to have some fun. This is a good thing, maybe even a great thing for sophisticated card players, if it’s true. During the week I played, I found some of the players to be highly predictable, with an occasional good player or two in each game for the minimum buy-ins. As my father-in-law used to say regarding his weekly poker games at home, “Whenever Dr. Beker bets, you fold.” The tables were also full of loose and passive calling stations, some even calling bets to the bitter end after flopping a pair that had two over cards on the table, and some overly aggressive players. Aggression without restraint is almost as bad as no aggression at all. Whether or not there’s more on this site than others, I couldn’t tell you. Those kinds of players seem to exist everywhere. But if the scuttlebutt is true then there should be plenty of fodder for the sophisticated players to move up the ranks and get ahead. Most often during this week of play, I found myself sitting at the table with a chip stack more than double the size of any other stack, simply waiting for the bubble-boy to be revealed. So yes, the scuttlebutt might be true, and if it is then this fact may easily negate all my gripes and make this site attractive for sophisticated players. And if you are disciplined enough to use my charts properly, you will be a sophisticated player regardless of experience.
Bet Online is an attractive site and as far as I could tell it runs very smoothly, but because of the high vigorish, and the higher amount it takes to buy-in to assure a modicum of success and the lack of 10-minute blinds, not to mention the lack of small freerolls, Bet Online, though considered safe and sound, is not my #1 pick for a poker site, and probably won't be my #2 pick, either. I hesitate to recommend it, especially for beginners. But I do favor the “Fast Double or Nothing” 8 handed games. It would be perfect if they’d just drop the fast.