Party Poker Canada Review: Premier Card Site for Canadian Players

Party Poker Canada Poker Review

Party Poker is among the industry’s oldest poker sites. Its foundation dates back to 1997, leading up to a grand debut in 2001. For the next few years, it enjoyed top honours as the world’s largest internet poker room, serving almost the entire globe. The United States passage of the UIGEA caused a shift, wherein the operator made the ethical decision to withdraw from the US market, resulting in its loss of that esteemed title to PokerStars (who, I might add, suffered for its decision to stay put a few years later.)

It’s interesting to note that, while PokerStars may carry the world’s largest player base overall, its parent company is headquartered in Toronto. Therefore, PokerStars should not accept Canadian players, giving Party Poker the title of largest legitimate poker site facing Canada.

Party Poker is currently averaging approximately 600 active players online at any given time, putting them neck-and-neck with their closest rival, 888Poker.

Ownership, Licensing and Regulation

Founded by PartyGaming, the site’s parent company merged with Bwin in 2011 to form Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment. Then, in 2016, following a bidding war between GVC Holdings and 888 Holdings, the company was acquired by its current owner, Entain (then GVC Holdings), for the lofty price tag of £1.1 billion.

PartyPoker.com is operated by Bwin.Party-owned and Entain-subsidiary, ElectraWorks Ltd, which is licensed and regulated in Gibraltar under Remote Gambling Licenses #050 and #051. Gibraltar’s regulatory framework among the most reputable in the European Union. 

That stellar reputation is one reason Party Poker was able to obtain one of the first licenses to operate in Ontario. In April 2022, Party operator ElectraWorks Maple received a license from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). Its services went live on April 12, 2022.

Software and Cash Games

Party Poker’s software has received significant improvements since the early days. It now features all the usual bells and whistles, like search filters and lots of player customization. The design is appealing, and the user interface is intuitive enough for anyone to navigate with ease.

The software’s RNG is regularly tested and certified for fairness by iTech Labs. The independent auditor’s monthly reports are available for public viewing on the website.

Cash game variety is fairly average, presenting all the usual stuff. Games and limits include:

The vast majority of cash game traffic is found in low- to mid-range NLHE games. Micro-limits up to $2/$5 get most of the full-table action, although you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a heads-up opponent at the highest stakes. FLHE rarely attracts anything beyond a heads-up game at lower and mid-level stakes. It’s hardly worth checking the PLHE tables—it’s a ghost town.

As you probably noticed, Omaha games are available exclusively in Pot Limit (PLO) format. Much like the Texas Holdem tables, action is constant at the low- and mid-range stakes, while a few big spenders might appear in heads-up play.

The Stud games rarely see action, also limited mostly to heads-up when it does happen.

Party Poker’s Fast Forward tables are a unique blend of NLHE and ultra-fast-paced game play. When a player folds, they are instantly removed from the table and seated with a new group of players who have also just folded. Aptly named, the action here never stops.

Finding the Fish

The Canadian poker room is especially famous (or infamous, depending on your view) for its Anonymous Poker Tables. Available exclusively in cash games, players’ names are never revealed. Instead of names like JoeShmoe123 and FishBoy987, you’ll only see Player 1, Player 2, etc.

The obvious reason behind this is to promote recreational play. The obvious result is a dramatic reduction in highly skilled poker players. For all you sharks (highly skilled players) out there seeking the biggest pools of fish (highly unskilled players), this could be viewed as a negative or a positive.

On the negative side, you won’t be able to use any tracking software to determine who your fishiest opponents are. You can’t figure out who’s easy to beat, and seek them out for a future ass-whooping session. On the positive side, however, with so few sharks in the water, the overwhelming majority of Party Poker’s members are fish. With a little due diligence on your part, you should have no trouble countering their inexperience with more skillful tactics.

Finding the fish won’t be too difficult. By definition, they are low-stakes players who don’t know a whole lot about poker. Thus, they stick to NLHE, and rarely play anything above the $0.01/$0.02 – $1/$2 range. The cheapest tournaments attract a lot of fish too, but you’ll find plenty of sharks and grinders frequent the tournament roster to take advantage of Party Poker comparably high rakeback.

Tournaments

Party Poker has a fantastic tournament schedule teeming with SNGs and MTTs of all shapes, sizes and buy-ins. Being the largest online poker site for Canadian players—as well as players from many other regions of the world—overlays are a rarity. The tournaments almost always meet or exceed their GTD expectancy no matter the time of day.

The site is most famous for its Power Series events, which offer players of all bankroll sizes an opportunity to compete for big cash prize pools. Some of the most notable include:

• The Main Event – Every Sunday, $109 buy-in, $150k GTD

• The Title Fight – Every Sunday, $215 buy-in, $300k GTD

• The Contender – Daily, $22 buy-in, 15k GTD ($25k GTD on Sundays)

Many other events in the Power Series take place multiple times daily, including Featherweight, Middleweight, and Heavyweight tournaments that can guarantee a collective $2+ million every week.

The lowest stakes tournaments are the Boot Camp variety, occurring all day, every day, for $0.10-$0.22 buy-ins, and paying out more than $100k weekly. Conversely, more than 20 High Roller events are also held weekly, where buy-ins of $530-$2,600 guarantee no less than $1,000,000 per week.

The site’s Monthly Majors are held—of course—once a month. Anticipation is high for these, as the $1 million prize pool is mighty tasty.

Satellites to most Party Poker tournaments are available for as low as $0.10. You can also find Feeder Satellites for major land-based events, including the World Poker Tour and select WSOP events.

Deposits and Withdrawals

Party Poker has spent nearly two decades building a trusted relationship with their players. The security of its banking systems comes without question.

Most deposit options are instant. All withdraws are subject to an internal processing period of up to two days. However, Party Poker is meticulous about its security reviews. If they have any reason to suspect suspicious behavior, such as fraud or collusion, they will review your activity for as long as necessary before releasing a cashout.

Accepting players from so many countries all over the globe, the full list of deposit options is beyond extensive. For your convenience, I’ve truncated the following list to all eligible Party Poker payment options for Canadian players, with side notes detailing which qualify for deposit and/or withdraws.

Customer Support

Getting assistance on Party Poker starts with an encyclopedic FAQ section that answers all common (and some less common) questions. It may be a bit too exhaustive, to be honest. Unless you know exactly what it is you’re looking for, you could spend a lot of time searching this section for answers.

To speed things up, members also have access to 24/7/365 Live Chat support, both in the software and on the website. There’s also a toll-free telephone support number (1-877-447-2183 in Canada). Email support is available as well, and typically responds anywhere from 1-8 hours after receipt; sometimes sooner.

I’ve witnessed a small degree of complaints about Party Poker’s customer support reps being unhelpful. However, in my experience, and the experience of all my colleagues, their representatives have been very knowledgeable of the system, responsive to player needs, overall helpful and friendly.

Awards and Accolades

In concluding our Party Poker Canada poker review, I’ll leave you with this to consider. Party Poker owns a brimming trophy case, having won many awards over the years for its platform and services. But there’s one series of accolades that outshines them all; a three-time back-to-back distinction they are most proud of.

At the 2017 EGR Operator Awards, Party Poker unseated the 3-year defending champion, PokerStars, receiving the most prestigious honour in the global online poker industry—the Poker Operator of the Year Award. Not only did they dethrone PokerStars, they proceeded to win the same award, at the same ceremony, the next two years straight (2018, 2019).