888 Poker Only In New Jersey
888 Holdings owns 888Poker, one of the largest online poker sites in the world (currently fifth in overall traffic) after tripling peak players on international sites from 2010 to 2012. Based in Gibraltar, 888 has recently made a foothold in the U.S. Market with 888Poker in New Jersey and soon, the same site in other markets. 888 Poker NJ is a regulated online poker site in New Jersey that operates under the Bally’s internet gaming license. Players should note that 888 Poker does not share liquidity with the international site of the same name, nor does it share traffic with 888 Poker-branded sites in Delaware.
With the current shutdown of land-based casinos in Atlantic City and other physical gaming activities due to the coronavirus, players are turning to New Jersey online casinos and gambling for entertainment.
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In particular, PokerStars NJ and PokerStars PA have seen a significant increase in online poker player traffic.
Poker players are looking to capture some of the social aspects of private poker games that stay-at-home orders have them missing. Players are currently able to set up their own online poker games with PokerStars NJ’s Home Games to play with their friends.
Currently, no other online poker operator in New Jersey offers private online poker games with friends. That is likely to change soon.
888poker launches Play With Friends
Due to the recent interest in playing private online poker games with friends, 888poker recently released Play With Friends for players outside of the US.
888poker’s tagline to promote their private online poker games: “Meet your friends online” means you no longer need to gather in the same physical location to play home games with your buddies.
In addition, 888poker filmed a video tutorial by 888poker Ambassador Chris Moorman on how to set up private cash games or tournaments with friends on their site.
All of this begs the question, will 888poker also offer Play With Friends to US players?
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We decided to reach out and received confirmation from customer support that 888poker is planning on offering Play With Friends to the US:
“Unfortunately at this time, 888 New Jersey does not offer private games and tournaments, we last offered the option over 2 years ago. The good news is we are looking to offer this option in the future, however, there is no scheduled timeframe for this re-introduction. Please keep an eye out for when this is re-added by checking our website.”
Also, due to sharing a player pool with WSOP.comNJ, 888poker NJ also shares players with Nevada and Delaware. This means that players in the three states unite for a larger player pool, and it seems likely that Play With Friends will also be accessible to players within those states.
How 888poker’s private poker games will likely work in NJ
While 888poker NJ does not offer Play With Friends, it is extremely likely that when this feature does launch in NJ, it will likely look and feel the same. Therefore, let’s take a look at how to set up online private poker games at 888poker.
Please note: 888poker Play with Friends is only available on the poker client, which means you cannot access it through your desktop browser or mobile app.
After account creation, look at the top left of the client where you see the drop-down toolbar options. Then, click on “Extra Games,” and the last option is Play With Friends.
Now, a pop-up window appears with a message: Welcome to “Play With Friends.”
There are two options: “Join Game” or “Create New Game.”
Once you choose to create a new game, you now decide whether to create a new tournament or cash game.
Create an online private tournament at 888poker
In order to create a new online private tournament with friends, make sure to select your options for:
- Game name
- Game password
- Start date and time
- Buy-In: Freeroll, $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $40, $50, $75 or $100
- Number of Seats: Two, six or 10
- Prize Pool Structure: Regular, 100%, 70/30 or 50/30/20
Additionally, clicking on “More Options” allows you to add:
- Second chance
- Re-buy/add-on
- Recurrence: Once, daily or weekly
- Blinds Increase: Slow, normal or turbo
- Action Time: Normal or fast
Create an online private cash game at 888poker
For cash games, select the “Create New Cash Game” tab. Then, make sure your selections are correct:
- Game name
- Game password
- Starting date and time
- Stakes: 1¢/2¢, 3¢/6¢, 5¢/10¢, 10¢/20¢, 25¢/50¢, $1/$2, $2/$4, $3/$6 or $5/$10
- Number of Seats: Two, six or 10
- Action Time: Fast or normal
- Maximum Buy-In: 40, 100, 200 or 500 BB (big blinds)
Once you create your private tournament or cash game, enter your email address to send the invitation to yourself and then finally, forward it to your friends.
Image courtesy of 888poker.
Bonuses for new players on 888 Poker
Registering your first player account with 888 Poker entitles you to the following:
$20 no-deposit bonus
You’ll receive $20, completely free, after successfully verifying your account. Please note that only half of this bonus is for poker play (the remaining $10 is for casino play):
- $4 can be used to play cash games
- $6 will be awarded as six one-dollar tournament tickets
Unused bonus funds and tickets expire after seven days.
Any winnings generated from bonus tournament tickets are unrestricted, and can be withdrawn on demand. However, in order to withdraw any piece of the cash game bonus, a player must accumulate three Status Points per dollar.
Considering one Status Point is awarded for every $0.50 paid in rake and tournament fees, it is easy to calculate that clearing the whole $4 cash game bonus costs $6. This translates to 66 percent rakeback.
Considering only $10 of the bonus is for poker play, of which only $4 can be used to play cash games, as well as the short seven day expiration time, we rank this no-deposit offer as below average by New Jersey standards. For comparison, consider that Borgata offers $20 for poker play, while Pala Poker offers $15.
Still, free money is free money, and the 66 percent rakeback value on the $4 cash game chunk is excellent.
100% first deposit bonus, up to $1,500
Make your first deposit of $10 or more and receive a bonus equal to your deposit, up to a maximum of $1,500. This bonus will be released to your bankroll in $10 chunks, at a rate of 100 Bonus Points per chunk (we’ll get to Bonus Points in the next section). For example: deposit $200 to receive a $200 bonus, which will be released in 20 equal chunks.
In terms of pure bonus size, $1,500 is the best you can get from a New Jersey poker room. To put this figure in perspective, note that competitors offer between $400 and $600. This means that 888’s bonus is 250 percent larger than the next-best offer on the market.
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Deposit bonus rakeback value
As stated earlier, bonus funds are released at a rate of $10 per 100 accumulated Bonus Points (BPs) or, put another way, $1 per 10 BPs. Players are awarded one BP for every $0.50 paid in fees and rake, which means for every $5 paid, the poker room gives $1 in return. This is equivalent to 20 percent rakeback.
While the $1,500 bonus size is the best in New Jersey, the 20 percent rakeback equivalency is the poorest available. For some perspective, consider that Borgata’s first deposit bonus translates to 25 percent rakeback, while PartyPoker‘s and PokerStars‘ are equivalent to 50% and 55%, respectively.
888 Poker Only In New Jersey State
Overall, we recommend the following to players looking for a first deposit bonus with the best absolute value:
– Players looking to make a first deposit of $600 or less may wish to look for an alternative.
– Players looking to deposit more than $600 will find 888’s bonus unmatched.
Other promotions and offers
888 Poker features recurring daily, weekly, and monthly freerolls. These are played between 19:00 and 21:30, depending on the day, and feature guaranteed prize pools from $50 (played daily) to $3,000 (last Saturday of each month). Note that some freerolls are available to all players, while other freerolls can only be accessed by players ranked Silver or higher.
Overall, there’s very little variety available in terms of recurring promotions – an area where 888 Poker could definitely use some improvement.