1. The Golden Age of Online Poker is Returning - Action packed High Stakes games, on a platform used by some of the best poker players in the world.
2. Poker players in 2017 and 2018 do have high stakes games available to them online, but the biggest among them are only on PokerStars and where the dot-com site is an option. There were some big.
3. Online High Stakes Poker: A Quick History. During the online poker boom years, the focus of high stakes play was Full Tilt. People used to sign in specially to watch the big games – with blinds of $1000+ and stacks of $100,000k.

1. Online High Stakes Poker Betting
2. Online High Stakes Poker Odds

High-stakes poker is exciting. From a viewer’s perspective – because a lot of people love to watch these games – you get to see people play for sums of money you’ll likely never accumulate in a lifetime. You can live vicariously through your favorite player.

Best High Stakes Poker Sites. Grab a tissue because you are entering the nose-bleed zone. If you’re looking for the best online poker sites offering high stakes action you’ve come to the right place. As you surely already know, the high stakes action has a tendency to jump around from site to site as big money players attempt to chase the.

Then you have the high-stakes players. For them, it might be exciting to play that high, but it’s also rewarding because most people don’t start out at those limits. They had to grind their way up.

However, no one would be able to grind their way to the highest limits unless they played at a safe poker site. The odds are better that they’d have their 5-7-figure bankroll stolen from them. No, to pull this off, they had to join a legitimate poker room such as one of the sites listed in the table below.

If you want to play for high stakes, you’re going to have a bankroll north of $10,000 and will be playing for hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars every hand. For that reason, these are the sites you want to join.

And that’s because each site above has our Seal of Approval. This all but guarantees that the site is safe to join – that they’re licensed, regulated, and reputable. We’d be confident recommending these sites to our mothers.

We only give our seal and rank a site once we review them. This is an intense process that spans several hours, if not several days. We go through every poker site we recommend with a fine-tooth comb to see if they’re worth joining.

Here are some of the things we look for.

• Whether the site is licensed and regulated
• The poker games, variants, and stakes you can play
• If the site offers guaranteed tournaments
• The banking methods they accept and their limits and fees
• If they allow pros to play
• If you can use third-party software and tools
• The amount of traffic they have during peak hours

The most important thing we look for is whether the room is safe. That’s how we determine who gets our Seal of Approval and who will be ranked at the top of our poker pages, such as this one.

From there, we compare other factors, like the ones in the list above, and determine where they should rank relative to the other sites in the list.

As for high-stakes poker sites, we’ll rank sites based on how high you can play across all their games and variants and whether those games actually see action and are worth signing up for.

That’s how we choose the sites we recommend and how you can know that we’re not just recommending poker rooms at random. We put a lot of effort into each one so that you can feel confident that you’re joining a safe and enjoyable poker room with high-stakes action.

What Kind of High-Stakes Action Will You Find Online?

The highest poker games don’t appear to run as often as they used to. Several years ago, you’d see and hear about the high-stakes action running at the 200/400 and higher NLHE and PLO games.

Many well-known pros played these games.

• Daniel Negreanu
• Phil Ivey
• Tom Dwan
• Phil Galfond
• Viktor Blom
• Brian Hastings
• Patrik Antonius
• Daniel Cates

These guys would play for hundreds and even millions of dollars per session. It was common for a player to see swings in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, which is impossible for most people to even comprehend.

However, these games have slowed down over the past couple of years according to pros like Daniel Cates. He says it’s rare to see the 400/800 games run.

You could assume that one reason for this might be Black Friday. PokerStars was/is the largest poker site in the world, and many of the pros were US-based. That said, it’s reported that many US-based pros have managed to find a way to play regardless.

Another reason could be that many poker rooms have adjusted their rake and VIP programs. Cates says that the games are getting harder and that the increased rake is making it much harder to beat the games.

That said, this only applies to you if your plan is to play the highest stakes possible. Otherwise, the landscape isn’t as bleak as we’re making it sound.

How high of stakes CAN you play online?

You’re going to love the answer to this – it depends. It depends on the games you want to play, the format, the variants, the traffic a poker room has, and loads more.

But here are some generalities about the high-stakes action you’ll see online.

Cash Games

You’ll find fixed limit games as high as $1,000/$2,000 and pot limit and no limit games as high 200/400. Cates has said that games higher than that exist, but we don’t know where you’ll find them. PokerStars has the most traffic, and their no limit games peak at 200/400.

SNGs

You can usually find SNGs for $500 or $1,000 a game. You’ll find SNGs as high as $5,500 if you play heads up.

Tournaments

You’ll have no problem finding tournaments as high as $500 or $1,000 on a weekly basis. Tournaments this large are often available on Saturdays and Sundays as part of the poker room’s special tournament schedule.

This is what’s standard. However, if you play heads up games (tourney or cash), or if you participate in the tournament series that many rooms run, like the SCOOP or WCOOP, you’ll find buy-ins as high as $5,000 or $10,000.

That said, what many people consider to be high stakes is the 50/100 level or higher for cash games. $500 or $1,000 is probably a good starting point for tournaments.

We point this out to show you that you don’t need to play for the highest stakes possible to be a “high-stakes” player.

It’s also a good idea not to think in extremes like that, either, as it can impact your choices for where to play. In other words, if you play or are willing to play at 50/100, then you might have a few extra choices for where to play than if you were to only play 200/400 or 400/800.

The best way to find high-stakes action other than joining every poker room yourself is to read our reviews. We create accounts at every poker room we review and report on the stakes they offer and whether those games actually run.

There are a lot of variables that make up a high-quality high-stakes poker site. The following are the most important variables, as they will have the largest impact on whether games actually run and the money you can make.

One thing you want to consider and compare is each room’s rake. This is important because many rooms charge a percentage based on the limit and pot size. Your goal is to find the cheapest rake (the smallest percentage) possible.

It’s also important to ensure there’s a cap on how much the poker room can collect. You don’t want it to be open-ended when you can have hundreds or thousands of dollars in the pot.

It also wouldn’t hurt to find a room that has a “no flop, no drop” policy. This, of course, depends on how tight you and the table are playing.

You want to make sure that the poker room has either a VIP program or a rake-back program.

A traditional VIP program will give you points for every dollar you pay in rake. Earn enough points, and you’ll move up in levels. Each level will have different perks you can claim or unlock.

With rake-back, you’ll have a deal with the room to receive a percentage of the rake you pay paid back to you. Rooms usually pay as much as 50% of the rake you pay back to you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Even if you’re spending hundreds or thousands of dollars per hand – making a bonus seem pointless – it’s still free money.

Many rooms have bonuses worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. Claim them, and you’ll clear them quickly at the levels you’re playing.

It’s essentially free money, and you’re in the business of exploiting edges. It’s a no-brainer.

Many rooms have adjusted their business model to focus more on recreational players. One of the biggest changes that these rooms have made to do that is add anonymous tables.

Anonymous tables are just like they sound – players aren’t identified by a screen name, but a number. You’re not able to take permanent notes, nor does the room allow you to use HUDS or data mining tools.

Anonymity helps weaker players by making it harder for better players to keep tabs on them or try to track them down. This helps recreational players feel safer or that the games are fairer.

The trouble is that most high-stakes players are professionals that want to earn money. This is much harder to do at sites where anonymity is used and software is not.

A few rooms will even tell you that they’re not interested in professional players – they’re interested in recreational players. You can either take this for the clue it is or deal with the room at a later date when they figure out who you are.

If you’re going to play for hundreds or thousands of dollars per hand, you need to find a poker room with banking options and limits that can accommodate that.

You need to be able to deposit thousands of dollars at a time – preferably $5,000 or $10,000 or more per deposit. There should be a high or unlimited number of transactions that you can make each month, too.

Cash-outs are also important. You need to be able to move your bankroll off the site quickly in case you want to pay your bills, use your winnings to buy a Lambo, or move your bankroll to a different site that has better games running.

Limits will often come down to the banking options you use. However, it also comes down to the poker room and what they’re willing to accept and pay out.

A quick email or phone call can possibly make all the difference here. Just let them know what you’re wanting to do and see if they will accommodate you.

This is without a doubt the most important variable. If there isn’t enough traffic for the games and stakes you want to play, then for one thing, you won’t be able to play or play often. It will also mean that most of the variables above are pointless to think about.

Honestly, your options are limited to PokerStars, as they have a monopoly on poker traffic. However, you might find some action at Party Poker and 888 too, especially if you play at the smaller higher limits.

Ultimately, though, all of these variables are important, as they will impact the stakes you can play, how often your games run, and how easy it is to move your money on and off the site.

You’ll also want to make sure you do the math on things like how often your games run, how many hands or games you can get in per hour, and how that will impact things like VIP rewards, rake-back, and bonuses.

Do all of this, and your chances of finding a solid high-stakes poker room will be that much better.

Banking Options High-Limit Players Should Consider Using

We talked about banking options in the previous section. This is an important variable to consider because you’re playing for lots of money. You need to be able to move large sums of money quickly without having to pay an arm and a leg in fees.

This is why we recommend that high-stakes players use Bitcoin whenever possible.

Bitcoin is an excellent option because you can often move $5,000 to $10,000 or more in a single transaction. We’ve even seen sites that let you move as much as $25,000 and $50,000.

This might not be enough to cover the bankroll you need. However, it’ll do for most players, especially if you’re able and willing to make multiple deposits.

Bitcoin is also a solid choice because it often has no fees for using it – at least from the poker room. You might have a small fee to pay when you’re sent your cash-out, but this is peanuts compared to the 5%-12% that many rooms charge for issuing a check or bank wire.

Bitcoin is also processed much faster, so you don’t have to listen to the poker room’s excuse of “your check is on its way” for the umpteenth time.

Finally, Americans struggle to fund their accounts. Their banks often decline their transactions and refuse to cash their checks. This can make it incredibly difficult to fund your poker account – especially for the sums of money you need to play for high limits.

Bitcoin solves this problem. There are no middlemen involved, so you don’t need to get permission from your bank as to where you can send your money. You can play poker whenever you want, wherever you want, just like an American should be able to do.

The bottom line – if you want hassle-free banking with high limits, low fees, and fast payment processing, we strongly encourage you to consider using Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency.

You can learn more by reading our guide to using Bitcoin for online poker by clicking the link below.

High-stakes poker isn’t as popular as it used to be. You won’t be able to log in every night to watch the pros battle it out for thousands of dollars per hand. These games just don’t run as often as they used to.

However, the lower-limit higher-stakes games still run. You can still find some cash game action if you join the right sites and know when the action typically starts.

There is plenty of high-stakes tournament action, too. Most poker rooms have a Saturday and/or Sunday schedule with tournaments that have buy-ins in the $200-$1,000 range. Play the larger series, and you’ll be able to buy in for thousands of dollars.

Ultimately, it might take a little bit of work on your part to find high-stakes action. You might even have to learn a new game or two in order to play. But these games exist if you know where and when to look.

Before you do that, though, we recommend you start by looking for a safe, trustworthy, and traffic-heavy site to join. The fastest way to find one is to scroll to the top of this page and choose a site from the table above.

Grab a tissue because you are entering the nose-bleed zone. If you’re looking
for the best online poker sites offering high stakes action you’ve come to the
right place. As you surely already know, the high stakes action has a tendency
to jump around from site to site as big money players attempt to chase the
bigger fish.

For this reason, we constantly monitor and update our list of sites offering
high stakes action. By ‘offering high stakes action’ we don’t just mean they
have tables ready for action. We mean that they actually have players actively
playing at the higher stakes. If you’re looking for high stakes poker action on
the web, click one of the sites we have listed below and enter the nose-bleed
zone.

Keep in mind that high stakes games don’t typically run around the clock like
low to mid stakes. You may need to check back at peak times or sit to get a game
started and filled. It’s also possible that the sites running high stakes might
not be based out of your country. This isn’t an issue but just means that peak
times will vary.

What Makes a Great High Stakes Poker Site

There’s always a reason that certain sites have the high stakes action and
others don’t. Below we’ve outlined some of the criteria we think makes a site a
great place for high stakes action.

Action

Action! Action! Action! The number one thing that makes a high stakes poker
site great is the amount of action it offers. If the site just has a bunch of
empty tables with one shark sitting and waiting for fish, it’s not that great of
a site. In fact, it’s downright terrible. You want to be playing at a site with
full tables filled with fish ready to donate their stacks to you.

You want to be at sites where several tables are running at all different
levels of high stakes. When this happens, not only do you get the action you
want but you can get multiple games going or game select. Both of these options
are great depending on what you’re looking for with your high stakes action.

User Interface Is Less Important

Online High Stakes Poker Betting

High stakes poker games online revolve around the fish. If there are no fish
in the game, then the game usually breaks. Sometimes the game will start back
up, or it may move to another site where there are more fish. Because the fish
are so important, other factors that we would normally look at when evaluating a
site become less important.

Online High Stakes Poker Odds

One of the biggest is the user interface.

You bet you would. Ideally, we would hope the fish would gravitate
to the sites with better features but they usually aimlessly wander the poker
landscape. It’s not uncommon to find them gravitating to a site with a less than
ideal interface because they like a slot machine the site also offers or
something else silly like that.

Fish are all about entertainment and usually couldn’t care less about what
the interface of the site looks like. As long as they are having fun, they are
happy. Thankfully the industry has been around for long enough that even the
sites with subpar interfaces are bearable.

Deposit and Withdrawal Limits

Most online poker sites have deposit and withdrawal limits that are plenty
high enough for the casual and even low to mid stakes pros. The problem when you
get to the higher stakes is that you need the ability to move large sums of
money around. Your deposits are going to be larger, and hopefully, your
withdrawals will be even bigger.

Often, sites will offer special methods of
depositing and withdrawing for higher stakes players. They’ll also raise the
caps on limits to be more accommodating. These will not be posted on the site
and can only be accessed by contacting customer support and requesting some
special considerations.

While we said that chasing fish trumps everything, it does not trump this.
Winning a large sum of money is great but becomes a lot less great when you find
out you can only get it off a little bit at a time. Make sure that when you talk
to support about raising your deposit limits that you get a clear answer on what
they can do for you with withdrawals. A lot of times they will open up special
bank wire and check options for their higher stakes players. You have to ask,
though.

Trust and Reliability

These are last on our list but are the most important. It does not matter if
you find a site with the biggest fish and the biggest deposit and withdrawal
limits if you can’t trust them. You will be dealing with large sums of money.
You need to know without a shadow of a doubt that the site you are dealing with
can be trusted.

Thankfully, our team does the heavy lifting here and vets every site before
we let them onto our recommended list. We don’t allow sites to pay us for better
recommendations or better reviews. This ensures that a shady site can’t find its
way onto that list. If you’re very in tune with the industry, you will notice
that we don’t list some sites that are currently offering high stakes action.
This is because we refuse to put a site on here that we don’t trust ourselves.

As a high stakes player, you deserve to know that your money you’re playing
with online is safe and protected.

Getting Started

If you’re ready to get to the felt and start crushing the high stakes, check
out one (or all) of the sites we recommended above. As the games move often, you
may want to check out each of the sites to try and find the one that offers the
limits you desire as well as the player pools you’re looking for. You may also
want to check back often as we do update when we find sites offering high stakes
poker action. There’s nothing wrong with looking for the softest games. Why make
things harder on yourself?