Sky Poker Review

Sky Poker is an Independent British operator that belongs to the Sky Broadcasting company. The poker room is governed by British law and is mainly aimed at its residents. As of January 2016, Sky Poker takes only the 27th position in the general Pokerscout rating, however, due to effective marketing on TV (broadcasts of the biggest tournaments on Sky TV), the room does not lack amateur players at its tables.

Rakeback and rewards

Sky Poker offers a first deposit bonus of 200% up to 500 GBP for 30 days. The rate of the wager: 10 GBP for every 250 points. Players get 6 points for 1 GBP of rake in cash games and 10 points — in tournaments. Thus, you get 24% of cashback for the cash games with this bonus, and 40% — for MTT and SNG.

All of the players are eligible for the VIP-program (you need to express your consent on the website) consisting of 6 monthly levels that are reset to zero in the beginning of every next month. Depending on the level achieved, players get bonus/rakeback. See the table below for details:

Traffic overview

The peak times fall on evenings CET. The number of players is rather moderate — about 800, sometimes 1,000 people. Nevertheless, the TV ads, the integration with the casino and bets plus comfy web- and mobile apps create excellent conditions for the inflow of recreational players. The games are played only in British Pounds (GBP), and regular action can be found up to NL2K, which is almost incredible for such a small pool of players.

The NLHE micro-stakes offer 20+ tables of NL4–NL30, 7–8 tables of NL50, 5 tables of NL100, and 3–4 tables of NL200. At the stakes of NL300–NL2K, the action is unpredictable. In general, one can expect 1–2 tables at each of these stakes.

The traffic in PLO is less substantial. One can count on 2–3 tables at the stakes up to PLO200 and sometimes 1–2 tables of PLO500–PLO2K. The SNG traffic is fine to nonexistent, except perhaps the micro-stakes DoN's. The МТТ section, on the contrary, is excellent: the weekly “Magnificent seven” series boasts a guarantee of 200,000 GBP and the buy-ins from 5 to 110 GBP. Besides that, the room holds other series with a prize pool of up to 1KK GBP that are held more for the purpose of its advertisement rather than attracting new players.

Software and trackers support

On the whole, the Sky Poker software is quite decent. It's sometimes slow and not always correct, for example, when resizing the tables. The running out time-bank is hard to be noticed and, consequently, it's easy to go sit-out involuntarily. Mass-tabling is impossible anyway — the maximum number of tables allowed by the room is 4. So, it takes the issue of possible multi-tabling options off the table. According to the rules, the HUD, the Poker Tracker and the Holdem Manager are also prohibited. There is no such thing as a hand converter for Sky Poker.

Deposit and withdrawal methods

The speed of withdrawals is one of the main trump cards of Sky Poker: 1–2 days for the e-wallets and 2–3 days for the bank cards. Skrill, Neteller, Visa and PayPal are available.

Rake structure

The Sky Poker's rake is weighted-contributed.

 Benefits

Sky Poker is a small reliable operator aimed at the European market. The software is humble and limited to 4 open tables. Nevertheless, the traffic is weak, the withdrawals are fast and the rake at the middle and high stakes is acceptable. The terms for MTT players are more profitable + the room holds several nice series. The poker room might be a good option for those who are looking for a new field of NL20+ cash games and low-middle МТТs up to 100 GBP, as well as those who are the residents of one of the countries that provide access to this poker room.