PokerTime Review

Updated March 25, 2006

Overall 78 Ease of Competition 75 Customer Service 63 Software 80

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Click here to visit PokerTime

Overview
PokerTime is a medium-sized poker room. Overall, it is a good site, especially for lower-stakes no-limit games. They offer a very unique signup bonus, offering up to $1000 in bonus money for anyone who makes a first deposit of $20 or more.

PokerTime also has very nice software. The games are fast, and the software is easy to use. Unfortunately, PokerTime's software provider, PrimaPoker, can be a pest. PrimaPoker tends to have very tight security measures that can sometimes annoy a player. These security measures have also resulted in some people unfairly having their accounts closed.

Bonus
PokerTime offers a bonus of up to $1000 to any player that makes a real-money deposit. Players earn money by accumulating Bonus Redemption Points (BRPs). After they make their first deposit, players have up to 90 days to earn as much bonus money as possible. More information about this bonus can be found in our PokerTime Bonus Review.

Promotions
In addition to sign up bonuses, PokerTime has several promotions. They have a bad beat jackpot as well as magic hand bonus. They also have several freerolls, such as a $15,000 new depositors' freeroll. They also have Rounders tournaments, which are similar to the Party Poker Steps tournaments.

Competition
The competition is about average. The games used to be very soft here, but they have gotten considerably harder recently. No-limit is a lot more popular at this site than limit is. There are many no-limit games to choose from with blinds of $1-$2 or lower.

Cashouts
A withdrawal to Neteller will typically take between 48 and 72 hours. Please note that PokerTime tends to request for ID or proof of address more so than most poker rooms.

Customer Support
PokerTime has fairly decent customer support. They answer their phone lines quickly and are generally very helpful. However, since it is on the Prima network, you may have to deal with Prima Poker support, which is horrible. PokerTime handles most basic account issues (such as cashouts or bonuses), but Prima controls the software and has final control over a player's account. Because of my previous history with Prima, I knocked their score down quite a bit.

Editor's Unique History with Prima Poker
While I have a lot of respect for PokerTime, I am very upset with their software provider, Prima Poker. In November 2003, Prima Poker unfairly banned me from playing on their network. When they closed my account, they sent me all the money I had in my account. Thus, they did not seize any of my funds; they only disallowed me from playing on the network. This still angered me very much, because I was winning a considerable amount of money at the PrimaPoker tables at the time.

Two years later, they decided to unban my account. So currently, I am able to play at PrimaPoker.

My story is not very common. The majority of people do not get banned from playing at Prima. Nowadays, most people who have their accounts locked seem to have supplied inaccurate or conflicting personal information (this was not the case with me). Nevertheless, there are stories about high-stakes players that occasionally have their accounts locked with significant amounts of money in it.

I am not sure why my account was locked in the first place, and Prima Poker never told me the reason they locked it. It's almost impossible to contact Prima Poker directly. This is incredibly frustrating, since you are pretty much at the mercy of people that you cannot even get into contact with.

Ring Games offered
Texas Holdem, Omaha, 7 Stud, 5 Stud

Ring Games stakes
Fixed-Limit: $0.05-$0.10 up to $100-$200
No-Limit/Pot-Limit: $0.05-$0.10 up to $100-$200

Tournaments Offered
Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha hi-lo

Tournament Buy-ins
Single: $.75 up to $100
Multi: $1 and up

Minimum Deposit: $20

Click here to visit PokerTime