Poker Site Reviews - Fact or Fiction?

Online poker players depend on poker site reviews to get a good idea of what poker room is the best one. Reviews give players an insight into the quality of the poker room before depositing. Players depend on these reviews to be unbiased and factual. But every now and then you will find inconsistencies. How do you know what is fact and what is fiction with online poker reviews?

Dates

Many poker rooms have been online for years, so reviews can date back quite a long time. While it is wise to specifically look for negative reviews for a poker site to get a good idea of both the good and the bad, it is important to remember that poker rooms are businesses. People are hired, fired, and company policies do change with time and the constant evolution of internet law.

With this in mind, players should always double check the dates of user-written reviews. Reviews from a few years ago may not be accurate. Policies may have changed, or rude customer service representatives could have been fired. If older reviews complain about poor customer service, for example, and all the newer reviews rave about the great service, then it's clear that the company had some positive changes. However if you're reading both old and new reviews that consistently complain about the same issue, this is a sign that perhaps you should choose another online poker room that cares enough about their clients and business to address problem areas.

Grain of Salt

Long-gone are the days of "the customer is always right" and some people will say that it's rare to find good customer service today. This means that when something goes wrong, many people will instead lash out verbally at the customer service representatives. These people are often noisy, and will post everywhere about their poor experience.

Now there are times when errors happen, perhaps a win wasn't properly released into your bankroll. It can be frustrating to deal with these issues, especially when it involves your hard earned money. Players have a right to feel protective about their bankrolls. Some poker rooms do not have instant access to customer service representatives by phone or live chat. There are a few that only have email access, which can have up to a few days delay for a reply. This wait time can only serve to annoy players.

It's good to keep in mind the expected wait time of a particular poker room, as well as the issues of the player in the review. A long wait can be annoying, but a reviewer who is aggressive or nasty probably wasn't any more polite to the customer service representatives they spoke to. Taking both the good and the bad reviews with a grain of salt will give you a more realistic picture of the poker site.

Drastic Inconsistencies

Read between the lines of negative reviews, especially if they are about a poker room that has a great reputation and mostly good reviews. If there's a review that stands out as extraordinarily bad in a sea of good, it may be best to just discount it as someone who had a bad day, with bad experiences. Likewise, if there is a sea of negative reviews and a few glowing ones, you may reconsider. Fact and Fiction can be difficult to determine when reviews can be written by anyone. Don't take a review as total fact- even with an unbiased reviewer, different people will have different expectations and different preferences.

Finding the Truth

There has been, at times, companies that choose to pay people to write good reviews over the web. If a review you're reading seems a bit biased, it may be the person writing it was paid to, or gets a payment if you join. Just because a poker site offers a great bonus code where they will get a percentage for your joining doesn't necessarily mean they don't offer honest and fair reviews. A good review is open about the good and the bad- and every online poker room has areas in which they excel.

The Trick to Finding the Truth

When you're looking for the truth in poker room reviews, your best bet is to look at a number of reviews on different poker sites on the same review site. Do they all present glowing, wonderful reviews with no substance? Or are they really just cotton candy- no substance, only there to try and encourage you to sign up with their link? Is their information up to date? Some common sense and a little research are very important when dealing with online poker sites. Anyone with enough capital can start one, but it takes time and effort to prove your poker room is a safe, fair, and fun place to play.