Ultimate Bet Poker

Ultimate Bet is one of the best known online poker rooms because of many reasons, both good and bad.

What to like about Ultimate Bet:

There is a nice flow of players at Ultimate Bet.  It is far from the most popular poker site, but you should find a nice flow of player traffic at peak and non peak hours.  Playing at a huge room can put you at a disadvantage because you will become more dispensable to the room.  If the room has tens of thousands of players online at all times, why would it bother to offer great service and player friendly terms when it can make tons of money either way?  Playing at a very small room is also disadvantageous.   For one, there will be less games and less overall action, you may not even be able to find a table at all times.  Also, the poker site you play at will not be as established, which means you will have extra concerns about the sites terms and payout options among other things.

Ultimate Bet accepts players from the US.  It also merged with Absolute bet two years ago.  This gives the sites more traffic, a larger player base, and a better player experience.  Overall the merge between the two sites has been a success.

Ultimate Bet is endorsed by Phil Helmuth.  If you have ever seen poker on TV, you know who Helmuth is.  He is not always the best sport about things, but he knows a thing or two about poker, having won 11 World Series of Poker bracelets and counting.  He would not throw his endorsement if it was not valid.

Ultimate Bet is one of the oldest poker rooms around.  There is no reason to go with an “up and coming” poker room if the old dependable one still works pretty well.  You can be at ease with the intricacies of playing poker online, I.E. Getting paid.

Ultimate Bet puts a big emphasis on poker tournaments, which I like.  Playing traditional poker is fun and all, but it can also be monotonous to say the least.  Sit and Go tournaments are popular, along with a freeroll every now and then.

Ultimate Bet only offers e-mail support, but unlike other rooms, UB’s e-mail’s you back within minutes instead of hours or days.  It would be nice to have a phone number to call or live support like other rooms offer, but in this day and age E-Mail is perfectly fine as long as your questions are answered fully and quickly.

Ultimate Bet’s withdraw and deposit options are very attractive.  You can deposit money using a credit card, bank wire or check.  You can withdraw money with the same options as well.  The whole process is as painless as it gets.

Like many real money poker sites, the competition at low stakes table is pretty slack.  If you know what you are doing and play tight while everyone else plays very loosely, your bankroll should grow and grow.  Stay away from the high stakes tables unless you really know what you are doing however.

Ultimate Bet is currently offering a 111% initial deposit bonus up to $1100.  That is as steep of a bonus as you will see playing poker online.  As long as you play the required number of hands the bonus will be added to your bankroll automatically.  1100 extra dollars can do wonders for ones bankroll and poker game altogether.
What to be concerned about:

Ultimate Bet has plenty of distinct advantages, but they are far from a perfect company.  In May of 2008 they were involved in the biggest online gaming scandal ever.  A player account “NioNio” along with dozens of other accounts were proven to be fraudulent.  Employees under previous ownership created these accounts and purposely gave these accounts unfair advantages.  These fraudulent player accounts targeted high stakes poker tables and ended up stealing millions of dollars from other players.

Ultimate Bet did do everything it could to deal with this problem.  All money lost to these player accounts were refunded, which is necessary and the right thing for Ultimate Bet to do.  UB publicly dealt with the problem, they did not go out of their way to hide the issue.  Also, those involved in creating the accounts were swiftly fired.

Although everything was taken care of in the end, the situation is still very unsettling.  Players used to take security for granted when playing online, but now we know how fragile the whole situation can be.  Thankfully, this was an isolated incident by lower level employees at Ultimate Bet.  The situation is definitely resolved and you should have no regrets choosing UB if you feel it is the right poker room for you.

Another aspect where Ultimate Bet comes up a little short is software.  There is nothing technically wrong with UB’s software, but it is not as flashy and easy on the eyes as Bodog and Cake’s software is for example.  The lobby and actual tables cannot compare to the rooms listed previously.  The software you use online is important, but in the end, poker is poker.

Scandals happen in politics, banking, even online gaming.  It just so happens that a scandal happened at Ultimate Bet.  Do not use UB’s past against them, they are a great mid sized poker room and they have a lot to offer their players.