What Is The Best Poker Site For American Players?

As a poker affiliate I’m constantly asked by American players what the best site is for them to play on. Here is a list of the poker sites that allow U.S. players, and the pros and cons of each site.

Poker Stars

Poker Stars is the world biggest online poker site. Pros: Because of its size, Poker Stars has lots of players at every level playing every type of game both day and night. Poker Stars is also very safe and secure so you won’t ever have to worry about the safety of your money on there. Cons: Because of the amount of games available at higher stakes, and the facility to play almost an unlimited amount of tables at the same time, Poker Stars is full of professional poker players, making the games extremely difficult. Also because of their size, Poker Stars are in no real need of new customers, so offer their players VERY little in the form of cashback through their loyalty program. Because of the tough opposition and low cash return for customers, there are better options available than Poker Stars, so I do not recommend playing there, and I do not promote it on my website.

Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker is the second largest poker site in the world, and therefore has the same pros and cons as Poker Stars with one major difference. Full Tilt Poker allow their customers to receive rakeback. Full Tilt Poker is safe and secure with good software and lots of opponents at all stakes, but the opponents are some of the toughest on the internet. Full Tilt Poker does allow it’s affiliates to pay their customers 27% rakeback though, so for this reason, I promote Full Tilt Poker over Poker Stars.

Cereus Network (Absolute Poker And Ultimate Bet)

The Cereus poker network consists of two poker sites. Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Whatever one of the two sites you are logged into, you’ll be playing on the same poker tables against the same people. Cereus is a medium sized poker network, with reasonably good traffic for all games, averagely skilled opposition, and good software. Both Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet allow affiliates to pay their customers 30% rakeback.

Cake Network (cake, Doyles Room and others)

The Cake Poker network is a medium sized network with averagely skilled opposition which I’d recommend over the cereus network as there are a few more players, the opposition is slightly easier, and at Doyles Room the 33% rakeback you get is 3% more than cereus.

Everleaf Network (Goldflop and others)

The Everleaf network is a small network with some of the easiest opposition online, and the 40% rakeback available at Goldflop is one of the highest percentages available anywhere.
To sum up, if you’re a high stakes player or play loads of tables at once, Full Tilt Poker will give you a better return than Pokerstars.
If you’re a medium stakes player, or a low stakes player that likes to multi table, Doyles Room on the cake network with it’s average opposition is a better option than the cereus network. If you’re a low stakes player looking for easy opposition and high rakeback, then Goldflop is a great option.