Best Online Poker Sites (2020 Freerolls & Bonuses) Discover the best online poker rooms where you can play real money online poker in the UK and find the best freerolls, tournaments, sign-up offers & no deposit poker bonuses. Poker freeroll tournaments are a phenomenon exclusive to the online poker market. Only at the best poker sites on the web are you able to play in competitions that require no buy-in, and have the chance to win a generous top prize. The best online poker websites freerolls can net you thousands of dollars or even seats into offline major events like the WSOP. The sites we list above are known for their poker site freerolls, so they are your first stop! Freerolls are an amazing and common way to test a poker site or learn the game.
How to Choose the Right Online Poker Room For You
Today's poker players are spoiled for choice when it comes to selecting a online poker room to play at thanks to there being dozens of major sites offering online poker services to them. Sometimes, too much choice can make the selection process stressful, so here at PokerNews we've created a ranking system for what we believe are the best online poker rooms in business today.
Freeroll Poker Tournaments
PokerNews' Online Poker Room Rankings
The team at PokerNews are not only experts in all areas of poker, we also love this fantastic game and are avid online poker players ourselves. This means that we are committed to providing an accurate ranking system that helps you, our loyal readers, to choose a poker room that is going to provide you with endless entertainment and a first class experience every time you sit down to play poker.
When one of our team is tasked with writing a review of an online poker room, they go to great lengths to ensure the review is accurate, fair and a true representation of what you will experience if you choose to give your business to that particular poker room.
To do this, the reviewer looks at several key areas – detailed below – and puts the software through its paces so you know what to expect when you come to create your account at the site in question. In short, we do all of the groundwork and research so you do not have to.
Which Are The Best Online Poker Rooms?
One of the most common questions asked by poker players is which are the best online poker rooms. The answer to this question, like most poker-related inquiries, is it depends.
As the saying goes “one man's meat is another man's poison,” meaning that what one person finds ideal for an online poker room may not be what someone else is looking for. Cash game players have different needs than multi-table tournament specialists, while low-stakes grinders look at a site differently to high-volume high-stakes players.
Thankfully, regardless of what games you play and what stakes you currently compete it, PokerNews' online poker room rankings and reviews give you an insight into what to expect from each poker room listed; both the positive and negative qualities are there for all to see.
How Does PokerNews Rank Online Poker Sites?
Our team members examine each of the online poker rooms in great detail before publishing their findings on the PokerNews site. As you will see from the reviews, we give a brief description of the poker room, list several pros and cons and reveal who the poker room's owner is, where its headquarters are, who provides the online poker room with its software and, if known, where the game servers are located.
From there, we take a look at bonuses and loyalty schemes offered by each poker room, examine where most of the site's traffic is concentrated, detail any notable software features that allow the site to stand out from other poker rooms, list the deposit and withdrawal methods, before highlighting the all-important customer support channels.
If a site has plentiful traffic across all games and formats they will rank higher than online poker rooms that are less busy. Likewise, should a poker room offer generous sign-up bonuses or run regular value-packed promotions it will rank higher than one where these offers are scant.
By looking at these key areas, you know what to expect (and what not to expect) before you sign up to a poker room, which means you can concentrate solely on playing poker and enjoying yourself.
What Should I Look For In An Online Poker Room?
It is all well and good having the PokerNews reviews at hand, but what should you be looking for other than glowing references from our team of experts? Here are some key areas that you should be looking for in an online poker room.
Bonuses and Loyalty Scheme
Every online poker room offers new customers a bonus when they sign up for an account with them. The size of the bonus and the conditions of its release vary wildly from each poker room, but most require you to make an initial deposit and will gift you a bonus based on the size of that deposit.
An increasing number of online poker rooms offer a no-deposit bonus so you can test the software for yourself without the need to risk any of your own bonus. The main downside to these types of bonuses is they are always much smaller than a typical welcome, sign-up or first deposit bonus.
Once you have signed up to a poker room, it will want to retain your business and one way to do this is via a loyalty of VIP scheme. Again, like bonuses, these scheme vary from site-to-site so finding one that suits how much poker you play is key. Some VIP schemes look amazing at first glance, often offering huge prizes for reaching the top levels, but if the stakes and volume that you play makes reaching those dizzy heights impossible they may as well be offering you the moon.
Security
For a poker room to even be considered for review at PokerNews we ensure that it has received official certification from an authorized online gaming regulatory body in regards to its random number generator and in its encryption methods.
Thankfully, these days, the best online poker sites are bound by strict terms of its license and security is taken very seriously.
Traffic and Games Offered
If you prefer to play mid-stakes pot-limit Omaha high/low there is no point signing up with a poker room that does not spread these games. Short-handed no limit hold'em cash games are by far the most popular format offered by online poker rooms today, yet some sites enjoy plenty of traffic in other games while some offer specialist games rarely found in the online poker world.
Software Features and Functionality
Even if a poker room ticks all of the above boxes, you may not want to play there if its software is not up to scratch. Software of the major online poker rooms has massively improved in recent years and even some of the smaller poker rooms have excellent software.
Look at the features offered by a poker room such as auto top-up, preferred seating, automatic rebuys and anything that you prefer to have available to you and see if is available on your chosen site. Chances are, if it is listed among our best online poker rooms, the features you require will be present.
Discover The Best online, freerolls on PokerNews!
At PokerNews, we work hard to bring our readers great freerolls every month, many with prize pools over $3,000.
Check out this month's exclusive PokerNews Freeroll, and remember, 'exclusive' means that our freerolls have small fields, since only players who sign up through PokerNews links can play! We have exclusive freerolls on a lot of sites. PokerStars has the best on offer, but partypoker and 888 also offer great value for some free poker play.
What are freerolls?
You may have heard the term 'poker freeroll' and wondered to yourself what one actually is. Thankfully, the answer is a simple one: poker freerolls are tournaments that cost nothing to enter, which means you get to play poker for free!
Not only do they cost nothing to enter, they almost always award a real money prize, which makes them perfect to start your poker career with, as you can build a poker bankroll with no initial financial risks to yourself.
Why is it good to play freeroll tournaments?
Freerolls are one of the most popular tournament formats in poker, played by hundreds of thousands of poker players every week. Some people enjoy them because it gives them the chance to play poker for free, while others take advantage of the fact there is no tournament buy-in so they can try new strategies without any risk to their bankrolls.
It aren't only amateur players who you'll find competing in a poker freeroll because they are often used by more experienced players who are trying out the features and software of a poker room that they haven’t used before.
Are freeroll tournaments really free?
You’re probably sat there, reading this article and thinking that there must be a catch and that freerolls can’t really be completely free. Well, you need not to worry about there being any hidden fees or nasty surprises in store because freerolls are free poker tournaments that cost nothing to enter, otherwise, they couldn’t be called a poker freeroll!
The only downside to these free poker tournaments is that the prizes on offer are not usually very large. Often, the total prize pool is only $50 to $100 dollars, although there are regular PokerStars freerolls that have $3,000 prize pools to play for and some of the PokerNews-exclusive freerolls have massive prize pools of $10,000 and even $20,000 for you to compete in.
Poker sites offer these freerolls because they want to introduce the game to as many players as possible. Some of the biggest names in poker started out as freeroll players. While players like Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey didn't start out grinding freerolls since online poker sites didn't exist when they started their poker journeys, many online players did have their first poker experience in freeroll tournaments. Often, they've never looked back after their first win, and never had to deposit in their lives.
Of course, there isn't a success story for everyone. You got to get lucky and run good in these events. But, then again, there's no downside to trying as freerolls are truely free poker tournaments, there's no catch!
Different kinds of freerolls
Online poker sites offer several different freeroll tournaments, all of which allow you to play free poker. One of the most common poker freerolls is the new player freeroll, which is only open to players new to the site and is designed to give you the chance to feel your way around the site’s software and to say thank you for signing up to them.
Another common freeroll is one that rewards you for making your first deposit on a site. These usually have a larger than typical prize pool and are only available to players who've made their first deposit during the qualifying period.
Freerolls are often used as the first step in the satellite process, making it possible to qualify for major online and live tournament for free, while offers are exclusive to players who have created their poker account via PokerNews links. PokerStars is one of the sites that has these freeroll steps on offer. The lowest step is free to enter. Win that one, and you'll find yourself with a ticket for Step 2. Continue on and you could make your way to a hefty payday, all for free.
Where are the best online, freerolls?
Each online poker room offers a different take on their freerolls so it is difficult to give one the label of best, plus what is not to like about getting to play for real prizes for free? Surely that means that all freerolls are best?
That said, it’s hard to beat the PokerStars freerolls that often have prize pools in excess of $1,000 or the partypoker freerolls – there is a $5,000 Cash Booster freeroll every week at partypoker – or the Full Tilt Poker freerolls that pay out between $500 or $1,000.
If we had to put our necks on the line and choose a best freeroll, then we would have to go with the yearly World Series of Poker freerolls. Some sites run special promotions in the run up to each World Series of Poker (WSOP) that award seats to the WSOP bracelet events and even the $10,000 Main Event! How awesome would it be to win your way to the WSOP for free? 888poker has an exclusive deal with the WSOP in Las Vegas, so they are allowed to buy you straight into these events. In the months before the WSOP, 888poker hosts several WSOP freerolls.
Freerolls versus Play Money: What is the difference?
You may think that there isn’t much difference between play money and freeroll tournaments because they are both playing poker for free, but that is where the similarities end.
Play money games are free to enter, but you can't win any real money. You play against other players who risk their own play money bankrolls, and you can only win play money, that's it. Especially in the lower stakes play money games, play can be wild. Players often go all in every hand, just to try and build a stack. Being patient in these games is important.
On some sites, most notably PokerStars, playmoney chips can be converted to real money, but you need millions of playmoney chips to really get a starting bankroll. Playing freerolls is often a better starting point than to try and run up a bankroll in playmoney games.
Barry Greenstein is often regarded as one of the best playmoney players. After PokerStars discontinued its real money offering in the United States, Greenstein decided to keep on playing on the site of his sponsor. You can play against Barry Greenstein on the highest limits of playmoney games on PokerStars.
In the early stages of a freeroll tournament, there are often players who go all-in frequently like there are in play money games. However, once the prize money – which is real, actual money – is in sight or if the freeroll awards large prizes, free poker tournaments start to play very much like those tournaments that command an entry fee. This fact alone makes freerolls the perfect platform to hone your poker tournament skills.
Free Poker Alternatives
In addition to play money games, there are plenty of other options, aside from poker freerolls, that allow you to play poker for free. They all suffer from the same negative traits as play money, though.
Well-known apps such as Zynga Poker, Governor of Poker and many other poker-related poker games on Facebook poker are undoubtedly great fun to play, but none of them can truthfully claim that they are a true representation of the beautiful game of poker.
The only way to experience the thrill of playing real money poker for free is to jump into one of online poker’s many freerolls and see what all the fuss is about for yourself! Good luck!