WSOP-comNevada

When most people think "poker," they think World Series of Poker. The annual WSOP awards tens of millions of dollars to skilled, lucky poker players from around the world and has the power to create household names. So, it comes as no surprise that one of the biggest, most polished players in the Nevada online poker space is WSOP-com, the official online poker site from Caesars Interactive Entertainment. The WSOP site officially launched for real-money play on Sept. 19, 2013.

Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) is a subsidiary of Caesars Entertainment, one of the titans of the casino industry. Caesars owns and operates resorts across the United States under the Caesars, Harrah's, and Horseshoe names. While the company is kicking things off in Nevada, it’s positioning itself to operate online poker in several other states when it becomes legal in those regions.

Caesars has partnered with 888 Holdings for its software and already operates WSOP online poker sites in various European markes. CIE also owns social games under a division called Playtika — including Slotomania, and a WSOP-brand Facebook game — and partners with Microsoft and Electronic Arts for games on the Xbox platform. Caesars executives also have indicated that the company may take another path with online poker. Donald A. Colvin, Caesars CFO and executive vice president, told shareholders that while the company is introducing the 888 software in Nevada, the company also acquired the rights to France's Barriere Digital as a potential future solution. "We'd anticipate that we might migrate off the 888 platform and onto the Barriere platform in due time," he said.

Software

Utilizing the 888poker platform was a good move for WSOP-com, as the software comes out of the gate looking entirely polished and including the features poker players had come to expect before Black Friday's poker prohibition.

The software allows for resizing tables, tile/cascading, gives players a time bank, has a decent lobby-filtering system, hand histories, synchronized breaks, and more. Those may seem like obvious features for an online poker site to many longtime online poker players, but they have not proven to be standard yet in the now-legal U.S. online poker space. The options get even more advanced, like allowing for keyboard shortcuts, and allowing players to optimize things like how a table with action pending is handled (Does the window pop up? Does it flash in the taskbar?), and where your cursor goes by default in the poker window (the chat box or the betting box?). There are also, of course, the more basic features that nearly every poker site has, even other newcomers into U.S. poker, like classic, jumbo, and four-color decks, or options to change avatars and table felts.

Traffic

Considering WSOP-com recently launched and is only available in Nevada, the site's traffic numbers are unsurprisingly low. The numbers aren't indicative of what traffic will be when the site has been given time to cultivate an audience, or when it opens shop in new states (let alone joins any interstate compacts).

Game Variety

WSOP-com offers hold'em games for players of all abilities, including beginners tables and a quick-seat option for players wanted to jump into a game immediately. The site is also offering both Omaha and stud games right out of the gate (both in high and eight-or-better formats). For cash games, stakes range from $0.01-$0.02 up to $3-$6 for no-limit hold'em ($0.50-$1 up to $10-$20 for limit).

For sit-and-go tournaments, the site offers regular, short-handed, heads-up, and turbo variants (just hold'em, for now).

For scheduled multi-table tournaments, the options are even more robust. Aside from some of the standard variations (knockout, rebuy, heads-up, turbo, super turbo, etc.), they also have some unique formats, like all-in-or-fold tournaments, "show me" tournaments (the winning hand is shown at the end of every hand, even if it went uncalled), and team tournaments. Granted, while the more unique formats are possible they aren't often offered at this point, due to lower demand.

The site hosts a weekly Sunday $15K-guaranteed event ($215 buy-in), a $3K-guaranteed nightly rebuy ($27.50 buy-in), and a $1K-guaranteed nightly rebuy ($5 buy-in).

Support

In the "Help" section players can find a robust FAQ, as well as a "Contact Us" page on which you can send a message to the WSOP-com support team (including any attachments). For deposits, WSOP-com allows bank transfers, Visa, and Mastercard, and it even offers a "quick deposit" option that requires much fewer hoops to deposit. To cash out, you can either do a straight bank transfer or request a mailed check.

Hits/Misses

It's hard to find flaw in the software, and the WSOP background and reputation all but ensures fantastic promotions.

Closing

WSOP-com is likely to be hard to beat in the U.S. legal online poker industry, as the software is solid and proven, the company has a built-in player base, and Caesars is in a somewhat unique position to offer amazing poker-related, land-based promotions to its players.