Online Poker > Online Poker Room Reviews > Empire Poker Room Review
Empire Poker is one of the world’s best known online poker rooms. Now owned and operated by PartyGaming, operators of PartyPoker.com – the biggest online poker room worldwide. Empire benefits from some of the most reliable software on the Internet. Since April 6th 2006 Empire Poker players have been on the same platform PartyPoker players, meaning they are now part of the biggest poker network in the world. Read More...
Our Ratings
Promotions/Bonuses
| Sign-up Bonus |
$100 |
| Deposit Bonus |
20% |
| Referral Bonus |
$0 |
| Deposit free bonus |
$0 |
| Paid to play |
$0 per hour |
Graphics
As a skin of PartyPoker the graphics on Empire Poker are identical. the only difference being the colour. Empire Poker thus has the same good human-player modelled avatars. giving the poker rooms a much more realistic look than many other sites.
Playability
Table
Empire Poker has benefited hugely from joining the PartyPoker platform. Among the most positive changes has been the addition software allowing players to take notes on opponents. which is one of the most important tools for improving your play. In addition. for the gambler in us all. Empire now features a side betting bar allowing you to bet on the colour of the flop. and a blackjack option.
Lobby
Empire’s lobby has also improved: for one thing it simply looks much better – the old lobby appeared a bit cheap and tacky. More importantly however is the addition of ‘players per flop’ percentages for each table. enabling you to see where the loose table are.
Player Numbers
Ring
Outstanding! Now that Empire is a PartyPoker skin once again Empire players have access to the PartyPoker network. the biggest in the world. As a result real-money ring player numbers for Empire Poker now peak at over 17.000.
Tournament
The same goes for tournaments with traffic now peaking at over 200.000 real-money players! Exceptional!
Game Variety
The game variety is ok. but not huge. However. while there is not the same variety as on other sites. the games they do have benefit by an increased concentration of players. They are: Hold’em. Omaha. Omaha Hi/Lo. Seven Card Stud. Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo.
Rake
Empire’s rake is much better for high limit games than it is for low limit games. At the lower limit the rake can reach as high as 10% (in $0.50/$1 and $1/$2 games) and in low level tournaments the rake is particularly harsh: in $5 tournaments the rake ($1) is 20 percent of the buy-in. Fortunately this isn’t the case with the bigger games where the rake is never higher than 10 percent and is normally much lower.
Special Tournaments
Empire runs numerous freeroll tournaments. countless guaranteed pot tournaments and tons of other promotional tournaments.
Promotions / Bonuses
Sign-up
Not bad: Empire have a 20% deposit match up to $100.
Loyalty
Empire runs a promotion for frequent players called the VIP club. You accumulate points by playing in real-money hands; points can then be used to gain free entry into tournaments or to buy items from the Empire Poker gift shop. There is also a ‘refer a friend’ promotion – you get $50 for every friend you refer while your friend receives $25.
Payment Options
Deposit
Visa. MasterCard. Debit Card (Switch. Maestro. Solo). epassport. NETeller. eChecks. Bank Transfer. Wire Transfer. and Citadel.
Withdrawal
EChecks. NETeller. wire transfer and cheque.
About Empire Poker
Empire poker was founded by Israeli businessman Noam Lanir as the online poker branch of his Internet gaming business – Empire Online. To begin with Empire Poker was part of the PartyGaming poker network; it was what is called “a skin”.
Being a skin meant that Empire Poker used the same software as PartyPoker. and shared the same player base. I.e.: if I was playing on PartyPoker and you were at Empire Poker we could still sit at the same table.
In October 2005 however PartyGaming “shed” its skins. which meant it separated PartyPoker from the skin sites. having the devastating effect that players at skin sites no longer had access to the player base of the PartyGaming network. This was a crushing blow for skins such as Empire Poker as the smaller player base meant there was much less to offer new players. Its share value was drastically affected.
Empire Online blamed PartyGaming for the downturn in its fortunes (its share vlue had halved since the company floated in June 2005) and an enraged Noam Lanir started legal action demanding vast sums in compensation.
But in February 2006 the conflict finally came to a resolution when PartyPoker offered to buy Empire Poker for $250 million: Empire Online accepted. Then in April 2006 PartyGaming moved Empire Poker onto the new PartyPoker platform. and the process was complete.
Empire Poker is now back in its rightful place as one of the world’s best online poker rooms.