Multiplayer Poker Apps to Play with Friends

You’ll find 888poker.com is geared primarily towards real money play. They accept Visa, MasterCard, Interac Online, InstaDebit, and other convenient ways to move money in and out of an account. There is a play money version at 888Poker.net, but this review is primarily for the real-money edition.

What I like most is the simplicity. They offer a lot of variety, but not so much that the lobby becomes convoluted. Cash games on offer include Texas Holdem, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, and 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo. A full schedule of multi-table tournaments is available with major weekly and monthly guarantees, and the SNG menu is constantly bustling. 888Poker also offers its signature SNAP and BLAST Poker games, for those looking for a bit more flare.

As a real-money poker experience, you can expect a lot of promotions to bulk up your bankroll, starting with a free no-deposit bonus when you register a new account. Other promos are always available thereafter, with regular deposit bonuses and cashback awards topping the list.

Considerable Considerations: There are two points to be made that could be seen as potential drawbacks. 1) If you don’t live in a jurisdiction where real money poker is allowed, you will not be able to access 888Poker.com or 888poker.net. They cater to real money players above all, and as such, to protect their own rear ends, prohibit access from any other locations. 2) You can no longer create private tables at 888Poker. While it is possible to play with friends, you cannot limit table access to friends-only. Other real people from all over the world will be able to come and go from your table, provided seats are open.

888Poker Specs

On a completely unnecessary side note, the lack of capitalization in the name partypoker is intentional; a branding decision on the marketing team’s part that, as a practitioner of the linguistic arts (writer), irritates me to no end. Sorry, but it had to be said…

The poker platform is optimized in HTML5 to run in-browser on any modern computer or mobile device. There’s no need to download any software. There are apps available for both Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, should you prefer. The layout is clean and navigation straightforward, assuming you know your way around a poker game. You can communicate with other players at the table using a basic text chat window.

Real money players are partypoker’s primary clientele, but there is a whole free-play section in the lobby for those who don’t wish to risk their own cash. You’ll find these games in the main lobby under the ‘Play Money’ tab. If you’d rather get real chips on the table, you’ll have access to a multitude of secure payment methods, such as debit cards, Apple Pay, Interac, MuchBetter, Fast Bank Transfer, and others.

partypoker has a good range of poker variants to choose from, as well. The ring games menu offers Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo,  and 7 Card Stud. As for tournaments, the schedule is packed with MTT and GTD variety, and there’s more than enough traffic to constantly fill seats in the SNG menu. To make the tournaments as realistic as possible, the top players can even engage in ‘deal making’ at the final table.

Playground Party: For all you Canadians reading this, you may be interested to know that partypoker is the official partner of the Playground Poker Club. In fact, if you’re a club member of the Playground, you’ll want to choose partypoker as your internet poker provider, since you can now link your accounts and play the exact same games and tournaments from Playground’s live tables, without ever leaving home. If you’re used to playing with your friends at the Playground Poker Club, tell them about it too and you can continue playing together online.

Considerable Considerations: Like 888Poker, partypoker only allows players from jurisdictions where online gambling is not prohibited by law. Regardless of your intent to play for real money or just for fun, you will not be able to sign up if you live in a restricted location. Likewise, partypoker no longer supports private tables. This means you cannot password-protect a table and invite friends only to play. You and your friends are welcome to play on the same tables, but you cannot prevent others from taking any available seats.

partypoker Specs

There is no money involved. It’s 100% free, 100% legal, and available to everyone on the planet. However, it’s still powered by old-school Flash technology, which means that only computers, desktops, or laptops, are capable of accessing it. Android and iOS smartphones and tablets are not. That could certainly be a deal-breaker for a lot of potential players. If not, continue reading…

At Bluff Avenue, users can host their own private tables, setting the stakes and rules of each game. You can host cash games with up to 9 seats, or private tournaments, in MTT or SNG format, for as many as 90 players. Game variants include Texas Hold’em, Omaha, or Dealer’s Choice. The software interface is user-friendly and very straightforward.

I’ve found two significant reasons why Bluff Avenue might be the best choice for a lot of people looking to play poker online with friends. First is an integrated VoIP voice chat mechanic called TableTalk. It can be toggled on or off, and gives players the ability to talk to one another as they would at a live poker game. All you need is a working mic and speakers on your computer. Headsets work great too.

Second is the ability to create groups by location. Let’s say you live in Saskatoon, and you want to play with other people from Saskatoon. Set this as your group’s location and others from Saskatoon can find and join your group.

When you sign up your account, you’ll see Favorite Groups on the left-hand side. Press that and you’ll have the option to Join or Create a Group. When creating groups, you can set a variety of parameters, including Public, Restricted or Private, and your geographic location. When creating games, you can choose from a variety of special rules, like live straddles, rabbit hunting, showing a card, a seven-deuce game, calling the clock, and more.

Every group has its own URL. If you create a group called Dinkleburgers, your group link will be www.bluffave.com/dinkleburgers. You can email or text the group’s link to anyone you wish to invite. If the group is Public, anyone can search for it and join. If it’s Restricted, anyone can search for it and request to join, but the host must approve it. Making the group Private means it won’t appear on the search list. Only those who know the URL will find it, and the host must approve any attempt to join.

Considerable Considerations: The biggest problem I see with Bluff Avenue is the Flash build. As it stands now, only computers can access the games, and when the year is out, that won’t be an option either. Most browsers will no longer support Flash after December 2020. Its creators will need to do some major renovations in the coming months, converting to HTML5 at the least, or Bluff Ave will soon become obsolete. According to the Bluff Ave Blog, they are scheduling maintenance times in which the servers will be down. They haven’t said why, but hopefully these fixes are on the way.

Bluff Ave Specs

This is a fantastic app for playing private tables with friends, especially if you’re looking to recreate old-school home poker games. Then again, public table traffic is abundant enough to find a good game against real people any time of day or night.

Clear instruction is right up front, making navigation a breeze. Aesthetically, I found the graphics and fonts to be nice and crisp, so you don’t have to squint to make anything out – an all-too-common problem with smartphone poker apps.

The poker variety includes just the basics – Texas Holdem, Omaha, and Omaha Hi-Lo, with FL, NL, and PL as applicable. There are four in-game currencies you can play with:

• Red chips are the basic play money you’ll get for daily logins. You can buy more with Gold chips, if you wish.
• Gold chips can either be won in special tournaments, or bought as an IAP. Their primary use is buying more Red chips.
• Emeralds are awarded for daily logins and for watching video ads. They cannot be bought. These can be used to play in ring games and tournaments where Rubies can be won.
• Rubies are the closest thing to real money in Pocket Poker Room. You can only win them by playing games with Emeralds. The value of 1 Ruby is equal to US-$1. You can’t withdraw this as cash, but you can exchange it for various gift cards or even Bitcoins. Learn more here.

You can jump straight into a ring game, MTT, or SNG in the poker lobby. They also have Fast Poker tables, where you are swept immediately to another table with a new hand anytime you fold. To play among friends only, choose Private Rooms from the top-left menu. Pick someone to be the host. This person will create a private group. They will be in charge of creating ring games and tournaments for the group, and are the only one capable of chip distribution among its members.

All in all, it’s not a difficult process, but there are a lot of features to explore. I don’t yet understand all of them myself, but I’m anxious to keep learning.

Pocket Poker Room Specs

It’s easy enough to use. Download the app from Google Play or iTunes, register an account, and give it permission to access your contacts (necessary to invite friends). Click on the Live Friend Group Video Chat button and open a table. Press Get Started and you’ll see a list of any friends on your contacts list that already have the Poker Face app, and send an invite to those that don’t. From the open table, tap those you want to invite to a game and enjoy!

That’s the short story, and it’s a summary that would pique anyone’s interest. This is most definitely an app ahead of its time. There are no other platforms out there boasting the same capabilities, at least not yet. In that regard, I feel like we have to forgive its creators a few notable shortcomings – all of which I can only assume are being addressed.

One common complaint is that you can’t “stand up” or “sit out” of a hand. This is a basic feature of other poker platforms, but one that’s sorely missing from Poker Face. If you have to step away for a few minutes, you’re going to be dealt in each hand you miss, and auto-fold every one of them. A sit-out option, maybe even a group pause button, needs to be added.

There are no buy-in limits for ring games, either. Hosts can set the blinds, but not the buy-ins. Everyone having significantly different chip stacks to start an NL game isn’t exactly fair. This could be remedied by allowing friends to launch private single-table tournaments, with even stacks and increasing blind levels. Multiple users have asked for this already, so hopefully it’s on the creator’s to-do list.

All in all, the Poker Face App is a grand concept with a lot of tweaks to be made. I commend them for their efforts to date, and hope this work-in-progress lives up to its enormous potential.
With that being said, let’s talk about some of the finer points. The software is RNG-certified for fairness. The graphics are good and well-positioned, considering everyone’s video chat window has to fit in a minimal viewing area. I actually recommend playing on a tablet, just to make it easier to see everyone. This app boasts the ability to look your opponents in the eye, as you would at a real live table. The larger your screen, the easier that will be to do.

Another point concerning smartphones and tablets, you’re going to need one of above-average quality to run this app smoothly. Remember, this is up to five live video chats you’re running on your device, while maintaining the connection to a busy poker server. Your internet connection must be solid, and your device processor fast enough. I would suggest an iPhone 7 or above, or a superior Android smartphone; Samsung Galaxy 9 at the least. For tablets, any iPad 10+ or Galaxy Tab S3 (or equivalent) should do the trick. If you still have problems, it may be your WiFi that needs upgrading.

Poker Face Specs

As simple and appealing as that sounds, there are a few details you need to know, first.

Number one, do not confuse PokerHost.co with the .com version. That second one is an unregulated real-money poker site based out of Curaçao and accepting USA players. That’s 3 red flags right there, all pointing to irresponsible ownership, if not illegal management. Moving on…

You don’t need to download anything to play poker here. If you were hoping for a poker app, sorry – there isn’t one. Built in HTML5, it’s already compatible with all system browsers. PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, they’re all compatible.

Anyone can sign up an account. All you need is a name, email, and basic location. You can be as specific or vague as you want, entering your city, province, or country. If you plan to be invited by a Host, simply wait for your invite to come. Thumb twiddling is not discouraged. If you’re going to be the one doing the inviting, you must apply to become a Host. To do so, you can shoot an email to pokerhost.co@gmail.com asking to become a host, or call 715-966-0758 (based out of Wisconsin, USA – not toll-free). They’ll get your account set up and provide you with basic instructions.

Poker Host is not free for everyone. Invited players join for free, but hosts have to pay a small monthly fee for their hosting abilities. Let’s review…

• Host Account – Monthly Fee ($1-$20)
• Invited Player Account – Free

There are three levels of paid membership for hosts. Their titles and features are as follows.

• Basic Tournament Host: Set up private, password-protected single or multi-table tournaments; no rebuys or add-ons, no “Cashier” options, no ring games. Fee – $1 to $20 per month, depending on players / usage.
• “Cashier” Basic: Set up private, password-protected ring games and single or multi-table tournaments with rebuys and addons; full “Cashier” options. Fee – $10 to $20 per month, pending usage.
• “Cashier” Plus: Set up private, password-protected ring games and single or multi-table tournaments with rebuys and addons; full “Cashier” options. Unlimited players, tables, tournaments, and usage. Fee – $20 per month, based on usage.

A Cashier has complete control over every player’s bankroll. The cashier can giveth, and the cashier can taketh away, increasing or decreasing each player’s chips as needed. If this sounds like an omnipotent power, it is, so if you’re part of a home poker group looking to take your games online, make sure you choose the most honest and reliable person among you to play host.

Another impressive feature of this site is the extensive game variety. Ring games can be hosted in Texas Holdem, Omaha, and Omaha Hi-Lo in FL, NL, and PL formats. 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo, and Razz are also available in FL only. This is where a cashier’s ability to adjust chip stacks comes into play. Instead of setting a buy-in fee, everyone’s chips can be leveled before each game to put everyone on equal ground.

All in all, this is a good place to set up private multiplayer poker games, but unlike some of the other ones on the list, it’s not free (for the host), and it’s not a highly trafficked website. At time of writing, there were only three players logged in – one being me – and no one actually playing. Since all games are private table affairs, that should matter, but it doesn’t bode well for popularity rankings.

PokerHost.co Specs

VW Poker is presented in a cartoon-esque 3D world. Each player selects an avatar to represent them at the tables. There are 24 to choose from, 12 male and 12 female. That’s not as many as you’d think, since they include all ethnicities and hair colors. There will usually be matching avatars at each table, but that’s hardly worth filing a complaint. The emotes are fun, the cards are easy to read, and the games are certified fair.

Texas Hold’em is the only poker variant on the docket. You can customize your private tables to feature 5 or 9 seats, with blinds scaling from 50/100 up to 5k/10k. Dealing can be set to normal or turbo speed. Once you’ve set all the parameters and opened the table, you can invite your friends by clicking the friends list (top left, just under the menu button) and tapping each friend you want to join.

To get all of your friends added to each other’s friends list, have everyone sign up an account and then log in. Do not choose a game yet. Each of your nicknames will appear in the lobby. One at a time, click on the name of a friend, then press the +Friend button.

Note that you must register a free account (as opposed to a Guest account) to create private tables, add people to your friends list and save your bankroll for the next visit.

As I said, VW Casino is a complete faux-gambling package. It’s not just a social poker room. You can also enjoy games like roulette, video poker, slot machines, bingo, and virtual sports. As far as I know, poker is the only multi-player game on the menu.

One of the highlights of Vegas World Poker is its universal compatibility, not just in browser, but also via mobile apps. It was built for seamless gameplay in all major browsers, on all major operating systems – all desktops, smartphones, and tablets, including PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, even Blackberry. No download is required to play. For those who prefer to install mobile apps for everything, VW Poker has those too. Cross-platform compatibility means that even if all your friends are logging on from a different type of device, via browser or app, everyone can still play together.

Vegas World Poker Specs

The site is free, don’t get me wrong. But the 100 free chips they give you to start are actually 100 Satoshis, which are a minuscule fraction of a Bitcoin (BTC). A single Satoshi is equal to 1/100,000,000 of a BTC, which means that, at the current exchange rate (time of writing), those 100 satoshis are worth just under one cent (CA-$0.00987792).

If you run out of those first 100 satoshis, they’ll give you 100 more, again, and again, as many times as you need to continue enjoying the games. And if you happen to win enough to be worth cashing them out into a Bitcoin wallet, you can do that too. You can also deposit Bitcoins to have more chips. So, technically, Blockchain Poker is a real money poker site, except that you don’t have to deposit to win anything, and standard currency never passes through the site. It’s 100% Blockchain-based.

Being an anonymous currency, account registration is optional, and no identifying information is taken if you do register. Even as a guest, you can take full advantage of the Bitcoin features. The only benefit of registering is that you can access your account from more than one device. At least, that’s how the creators describe it.

Blockchain Poker claims they can keep up with a guest account on one device, and it’s proved true so far. Each time I’ve visited the website, they instantly recognize my guest account. However, if you’re going to take advantage of the BTC offerings, I would suggest registering with a password. It would be a shame to do well on the virtual felt and lose it all because you cleared your browser history, cookies, and/or cache.

That being said, the games themselves aren’t anything fancy. It’s green felt on a grey screen with basic card graphics. There are no avatars or emojis, just a basic text chat. All games are played as NL Texas Hold’em. Ring games and free BTC tournaments are always available.

For a private game, click on Lobby, then Create Table at the bottom. Enter a name for it, choose the blinds, turn time, and seats (2, 6, or 9), then set a password. Follow the same steps from the Lobby > Tournaments window to create a private tournament. Tell your friends the table/tournament name, give them the password, and you’ll be flipping digital cardboard together before you know it.

Blockchain Poker Specs

There’s no download required to play on any device (desktop or mobile), although mobile apps are available for iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire. It’s a bit of a resource hog, so if you don’t have a graphic card on your PC, or a decent processor on your mobile device, you may experience lag, disconnects, and/or other aggravations.

On your first visit, you’ll be asked to sign up an account through email, or login instantly with Facebook or Google+. I highly recommend Facebook, for reasons we’ll discuss later. Once you’re in, you’ll be led on a brief tutorial that takes you into a Texas Hold’em game, teaches you how to choose buy-in size, and gets you familiar with the betting options. Finish the first hand, leave the table, and the tutorial continues to show you that clicking Play Now will send you straight into a cash game that suits your bankroll, without having to choose a buy-in level. From there, you’re on your own…

If you’re familiar with online poker, it should all make sense to you soon enough. If not, it’s going to take a lot of getting used to. For instance, there’s no defined Lobby with Cash Game and Tournament sections. To play a cash game, you must click a game type, Texas Holdem or Omaha (from the left side of the screen), then choose your buy-in level, or press the Play Now button and let the program decide where to put you. To play a Tournament, scroll through the open events and tourneys listed to the right of the cash game section to see what’s available. The buy-in for each event is displayed below its title.

Making friends isn’t the easiest thing to do, either. You have just two options. You can click on the name of a person you’re at the table with and press the Add Friend button, represented by a head with a plus sign (+) by it, or you can sign in with your Facebook account and have instant access to all of your Facebook friends who also have the game, and connected it to their Facebook account.

This is why I strongly urge using Facebook to sign up. Ask your friends to get the game and sign up with Facebook as well, and you get to skip the friend-adding process altogether. Otherwise, getting onto a table with your actual friends isn’t the easiest thing to do when they aren’t your friend yet. This and the lack of a viable MTT/SNG tournament lobby are probably my biggest gripes with the Play WSOP platform.

Once you have some friends on your list, it gets easier to play with them. From the main screen, click on your profile button (top left corner). In the new window that appears (you must scroll down on some devices to see it), your friends will be listed. Click the Call To Game button below a friend’s name to invite them to join you in a cash game. You can also send your friends chips in this window if you want.

Overall, I think this app is best suited for those who are already familiar with the online poker scene, or are at least bored enough to read through the FAQ pages and explore the many options to learn all about the many features hidden within.

Play WSOP Specs

Poker Heat

That’s Poker Heat in a nutshell. Here’s the good news…

Once you’re in the app, you collect chip bonuses every four hours to help keep your bankroll on the uptick. You’ll also unlock bonus spins on a Mega Wheel by achieving various tasks. For example, playing 10 hands unlocks the first spin.

You can get right into a game by pressing Newbie Court on the main screen. You’ll be seated with other real players of newbie status, where you’ll automatically be dealt into the next hand. The button layout makes it extremely easy to understand what’s going on, and what your options are, even if you’re new to the game.

The more you play, the more you’ll level up, opening access to higher stakes tables. They include tables like the Blind Spot (Lvl 3), Victory Cage (Lvl 5), Fortune Field (Lvl 10), all the way up to Imperial Dome (Lvl 60), where the buy-in is $30M.

If your friend(s) don’t already have Poker Heat, you’ll need to invite them before you can play together. Tap the People icon in the top right corner. Three options appear on the left; Friends, Gifts, and Invite. If you connected via Facebook, tap Friends to see who has Poker Heat, and press their name for further actions.

Pressing Invite gives you the option to send quick invite links to your friends via Facebook, Messenger, Skype, email, text message, or any other supported means of communication you happen to have installed on your smartphone or tablet. You’ll get 200k chips for every friend you invite that joins. Once a friend is on your list, you can invite them to any poker table you’re seated at, provided there is an open seat for them. Just press the invite button on the seat and choose the friend you want to join from your list.

And now for the not-so-good-news…

The bad news, in my opinion, is that the app was developed by Playtika, the same people that created the Play WSOP app. The games themselves are great, don’t get me wrong, but navigation is anything but standard. There’s no traditional lobby. You cannot choose a table to play on. Instead, you choose a level of play (Newbie Court, Blind Spot, etc.), and are thrown onto a table of the app’s choosing. This makes it harder to play directly with friends, even though the app’s description repeatedly promotes gameplay against friends. Each friend will need to click the same table level at the same time and hope they get thrown into the same game.

I have yet to figure out where the tournament menu is, although the game’s description on the Google Play and Apple Store states they do exist. If these are limited to Poker Heat’s occasional GTD promos, that’s not much of a tournament roster.

I think this app will appeal to a lot of people who love good, clean, cash game poker tables with highly emotive interaction. However, I’m not sure it’s a good choice for beginners, tournament fans, or those with more than one friend they want to compete with/against.

Poker Heat Specs