Trusted Online Poker Rooms 2018

If you keep up with national headlines in the world of online gaming, then you probably heard about the huge poker scandal that took place just a few years ago at Ultimate Bet. From various reports submitted by players and employees inside this particular poker room, a story was pieced together over several years that indicated the website had somehow been penetrated by hackers. These individuals not only gained access to the poker room’s security, but they also figured out a way to view each of their opponent’s hole cards at the table.

In Ultimate Bet’s defense, they had spent millions of dollars to acquire a state-of-the-art security suite that was supposed to be literally uncrackable, so it didn’t help that their initial reaction was to deny all of these claims. Over the next few years, this poker room studied every single hand that was ever played inside the gaming website and realized that a single person was responsible for the cheating. Even worse…the numbers were absolutely staggering on the amount of money that was hustled out of honest players. Some said the theft added up to $75 million, others claimed it was closer to $32 million. Ultimate Bet didn’t know what to say; their system was uncrackable….just like the Titanic was unsinkable.

The scandal didn’t end when this criminal was caught though; that was merely the beginning. After further review, analysts discovered that if this level of theft could happen at Ultimate Bet with their great security, it could happen anywhere. Suddenly, a number of promising new poker websites looked like ghost towns, and the older, more respected poker rooms weren’t doing much better. This led to all kinds of internet crackdowns on casinos operating illegally or not paying their players fairly…a movement that is still rocking the internet even to this day.

In the midst of what many believe to be the largest internet crime ever, the remaining poker rooms learned a few things about security and protecting their website. Ultimate Bet was actually one of the frontrunners in seeking ways to make sure that a crime of this caliber could never happen again, which meant that an entirely new unhackable system would have to be designed from the ground up.

Today, the few legitimate poker rooms out there that have withstood all of this negative criticism are among the most secure websites that you’ll find anywhere on the internet. Most of them use encryption methods that are better than what you’d find inside your average financial institution and their firewalls are more advanced than the FBI’s, Scotland Yard, or many of the government website out there.

Here are a list of the top three online poker rooms in terms of security protocols and overall player protection. While we wouldn’t dare say that any of them are “unhackable”, there are easily a thousand websites out there where criminals could steal the same amount of money with only a fraction of the work. Instead, we will say that these four websites are among the most secure of any type of online casino you’ll come across and there’s no way that they would invest these levels of time and money if they were not doing everything possible to protect you while you’re at their website.

SportsBook Poker

Sportsbook is not only one of the oldest online poker rooms around, but they have also been an industry leader in upgrading their website much more frequently than their competitors. To some this may not sound like too much of a big deal, but just look at how often we have to update Windows for security fixes. Security is always one of SportsBook’s main priorities so you can feel safe while playing with them.

In terms of actual poker, SportsBook has a wide variety of Hold’em, Stud, and Omaha poker games at numerous skill and ante levels. Their guarantee tournaments draw in thousands of players every single day because they have consistently been one of the best online poker rooms in the world.

Players Only

Players Only learned a whole lot from the struggles at Ultimate Bet and they were one of the first to step forward on behalf of their own players. Even though not a single instance of cheating was detected at their website, their management knew that it was going to take a whole lot more work to protect their players from an unknown threat on the internet.

Players Only is also home to some of the best poker incentives and loyalty bonuses on the net. Their customer service has consistently stood out as being especially hard at work to please each and every player, which is why their player base has grown each and every year that they’ve been in business.

Ultimate Bet

I know it probably seems crazy to list Ultimate Bet on this list, but the facts simply do not lie. At the time of the thefts they were one of the most secure poker rooms around. As soon as they discovered that something was wrong, the management immediately began refunding money to their customers out of the company’s pocket…which ended up being well over thirty million dollars. Keep in mind that these mass refunds did not come from a court order or some other type of threat…..they gave away thirty million dollars voluntarily because it was the right thing to do.

Today, Ultimate Bet is still home to more professional poker players than all of the other online gaming rooms combined. Those players are there because they have complete faith in UB to do the right thing when it comes to hackers and security, which is why this website consistently has some of the world’s largest tournaments and pot games.

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