If you are just getting started with Texas Hold'em, or if you are a big fan of other games such as blackjack or slots, it makes sense to start by playing free poker online. Free poker gives you a chance to learn the game rules, see how various combinations win, and get a better feel for good and bad hands.
However, while free poker online can be fun, and is a good way to learn the basics of the game, you should not play free poker games for too long. In fact, we recommend that after learning the basic hand rankings and rules of Texas Hold’em, you make the transition to playing low-limit cash games or .
Today, all of the top real-money online poker sites offer play money versions of their games. While this is great for novices, it is also great for experienced players as it allows them to fish in fresh waters from time to time. To help you focus on real-money poker games, we will explain why you should avoid play money poker online and point you towards some true skill poker sites where you can put your skills into action.
Can´t Win Without Money in Poker
The first and foremost reason why you should only play real-money poker online is because you cannot win without money - at least not real money. When you , you win play chips when you reach certain milestones (such as signing up) and whenever someone else pays your betting contributions in a multi-table tournament. Other than that, economy 101 states that you need to produce more than you consume to end up with a profit.If you pay people's betting requirements in a cash game or outlast all other players in a tournament, you have produced value and, therefore, earned profit - even if that profit is play chips. However, if you never make it in the money in tournaments or your betting contributions exceed the amount people are putting into the pot when you have a good hand in cash games, you have consumed value and, therefore, incurred a loss – even if that loss is disguised as play chips.
In fact, most people who play free online poker end up as net losers, just as most people who play for real money are destined to lose in the long run. The difference is that losing players who play for real money are aware of their losses because they deposit, buy-in to tournaments and top-up when they run low, whereas play money losers only become aware of their overall loss when they move on to another pastime.
Seas Casino Review NJ & MI - Slots & Other Games To PlayTherefore, unless you are a millionaire and don't mind throwing away millions every time you outlast someone in a free poker online tournament, it has to be about real money when you sit down to play Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Boost or any other poker variant.
Real Money Online Poker Sites for US Players
18+ | Play Responsibly | T&C Apply
18+ | Play Responsibly | T&C Apply
Real Money Online Poker Sites for Non-US Players
Unlicensed pillage and plunder!
You Won’t Improve Your Skills Playing Free Poker Online
If your main objective when playing poker is to have fun, it really doesn’t matter whether you play for real money or play money. However, if your goal is to improve your poker skills, free online poker is not the answer.To improve your poker skills, you need to make mistakes, reflect on those mistakes and learn from them. If your mistakes only cost play chips, you are not going to take them seriously enough to learn anything. It is a bit like driving a car without a speed limit on an empty road. Most people will step on it and will not learn much from the experience.Only when there is a risk of getting caught (getting a ticket) or having to bear the consequences (a wrecked car), do people slow down and learn the error of their ways.Exactly the same applies when you are : No one takes their play chip losses serious enough to learn something from the experience. This becomes obvious when you look at the behavior of winning and losing players. Losing players quit playing, while winning players continue to play and win even more play chips.This paradoxical result can only occur when people have no intrinsic interest in the outcome of the game. If they would have played for real money, losers would quit for obvious reasons and winners would stop once they achieved their goals. Therefore, play money attracts recreational players, while losing players flee to safety.
Recreational players love to play with bots!
It is for this reason that so many recreational players flock to play money tables while losing players flee to safety and move over to real-money games. This creates an environment that is highly unfavorable for professional and semi-professional poker players. It is like a swarm of recreational players is being funneled into the play money tables while losing players that normally would replace the players that ran their balance dry are disappearing from the real-money tables. This creates an imbalance in the poker ecosystem that is unsustainable in the long run because poker is a negative expectation venture.
Of course, this does not mean that pro players should give free poker online a miss every now and then. It is great to hop on and test out a couple of strategies or to try and convert a few newbies to the dark side, but it should not become a habit. Plus, it needs to be the right free online poker. For example PokerStars Play and Zynga Poker are designed to fleece you, so you should stay away from them (more on this later).
The Pros and Cons of Play Money Poker
Before diving into real cash poker, it is important to highlight the pros and cons of playing free poker online. Let's have a quick look:
Pros:
- It's free: The most obvious perk to playing poker with play money is you're not spending your own hard-earned dollars. And let's face it, it's possible to lose a lot of real money very quickly if you don't know what you're doing.
- You learn the basics: Play money poker is a great tool to teach yourself the very basics of poker. You can learn the hand rankings, how to make bets, and generally how the flow of a hand works.
- No emotions: Unlike real money poker, you can't get upset about losing with play money. There is no sweat, which means you can make mistakes, lose chips, and learn from them without any stress. This leads to clearer thought processes, which again can actually have you making less mistakes.
- It's fun: Who said you have to play poker with real money? Of course, it helps sharpen your skills, but sometimes you just want to play because it's entertaining. After all, poker is classed as an gaming in several states around the US. So have fun while it lasts! Once they start passing taxes on it, it may no longer be considered a game.
Cons:
- No financial responsibility: As we have stated above, players tend to act irresponsibly when they don't have "real" skin in the game. They won't think twice about playing the worst starting hand, making little to no attempt at winning the hand, because they aren't losing anything, right? Wrong. These are the things which bleed your bankroll dry.
- Time waster: Once you learn the basics of poker, playing for play money gets pretty boring. You aren't going to get much practice out of repeatedly folding your hand until the big stack goes all-in on every street.
- Doesn't prepare you for real money games: Because players act so irresponsibly, like seeing a player go all-in every hand, it doesn't prepare you for real money games at all. You won't be learning how to play against sober, responsible adults. It'll be like starting all over again when you make the transfer.
Where to Play Free Poker Online
As we mentioned before, you shouldn't play free poker online for too long. The main purpose of play money games is to entertain players who aren't interested in winning or losing money. These types of players are not welcome in real-money games - trust us!
With that being said, all online poker sites have some form of free poker games. However, the two we have listed below are your best options.
-- Best Site for Free No Download Poker
If you're looking to jump straight into the action, without the hassle of a poker download, then Chumba Casino could be for you. Although it operates like a social casino, where you play with 'Gold Coins' and purchase packages of 'Sweeps Coins', it is fully licensed and regulated in the US.
Early forget Chumba Casino when discussing real money poker in the US. The free poker site has amassed over 100 million users since launching back in 2012 and continues to grow year-on-year. The reason is simple -- it's free, it's fun, and you can potentially win real money, especially if you live in the states of Washington, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
The similarities between Chumba Casino and an online poker room are abundant. You can play a plethora of different , including Hold'em and Omaha, plus there are tournaments, Cash Games, and even a bonus scheme.
New players to Chamba Casino is a generous 200,000,00 Gold Coins as well as two FREE Sweeps Coins on sign-up.
-- Best Free Poker Download
If you want a little more grunt out of your free poker app, then you might be after a download. Again, most sites offer these, but none come close to PokerStars when it comes to volume, network, and reputation.
Thankfully, you can play free no download games at PokerStars, but the experience isn't as good as "Where" -- the free poker app offered by the industry-leaders.
Where can be described as an educational tool, which teaches beginners the basics of poker via challenges, missions, and tutorials. To complete these functions, you need to pony up with Play Chips, which you can purchase using the app. But if you can't afford to do that, you can grab them for free by sharing lessons and games you have completed on your social media accounts. Trust us, your friends will love you sending screen shots of your latest Play Moves and Challenges.
Exciting Casinos in Puerto Rico You Need to Try OutWhile you can't play real money hands without depositing at first, complete a set number of lessons and missions, and play a certain number of hands, and you will get access to the "Real Money Practice Play" feature, which mimics the PokerStars lobby and lets you hit the tables without depositing. Win or lose is all play chips and tokens, but it replicates the functionality of the real site, which makes it a brilliant stepping stone before making the transition.
The biggest downside to poker apps like Where is that you can't transfer play chips/tokens/whatever to the real money client. You have to work for it again or purchase more play chips if you want to head to the real money tables.
Why Are Some People Against Free Online Poker?
Although many websites and apps offer free poker online, not all are trustworthy. As you might guess, businesses aren't willing to give away money without getting anything in return.
One of the most popular free poker games is called Zynga Poker and this game is offered on Facebook. During the initial stages of Facebook and Apple's rise to power, many startups tried to figure out ways to capitalize on the new platforms. One of the most profitable ways was to create games people could play for free and Zynga was perhaps the most successful company during this period. Zynga created immensely popular games such as Farmville, Chefville, Words Challenge, and of course Zynga Poker.
Now, you might wonder how a business can give poker chips, seeds, apples, pears, carrots, and all sorts of other items away for free. Well, it isn't for free. You see, most of the games were and still are free to play but contain in-game purchases. This means you can rapidly advance by buying chips, coins, seedlings, animals, honey, and all sorts of other stuff instead of needing to wait an hour or so for the free gifts.
Zynga Poker allows you to win roughly 50,000 chips for outlasting eight other players in a tournament or by hitting a flush on the river. However, to simply compete, you need to pay. For instance, to sit down at a table, you need to pay a tax of 500-1000 chips. Moreover, most players have chipped up numerous times, which means you need to have substantial chips to even be dealt a hand.
Free from poverty, free to play, free to enjoy ... but not really.
Free from wanting to punch your computer’s screen because it happens to be impossible to win without regularly topping up your account. Now, this wouldn’t be such a big issue if it weren’t such a great game. In fact, because it’s so much fun, many people are prepared to pay large sums of money to acquire play chips. In fact, Zynga made $327.4 million from in-game purchases in the third quarter of 2021 alone.
If a few million people spend a couple of bucks on play chips every three months, no big deal, right? Well, it would not be a problem if everyone got the same value for their money. However, no matter how much you pay, you never get an unfair advantage over other players. In fact, players that join the site through Facebook and only use the free chips have an enormous advantage because they only attract rookie players that have nothing but play chips to offer.
Zynga tries to prevent people from using Facebook to pick up players by capping the number of chips you can win in a session and by preventing you from adding people that you don’t know. However, this doesn’t solve the underlying problem that the business model of offering free poker online relies on getting people to make in-game purchases. Ultimately, this results in a player pool that consists almost entirely of beginners and a couple of weirdos that have nothing better to do than play free poker online all day long.
Needless to say, this makes Zynga Poker a terrible place for an experienced poker player. Sure, you can win a couple of hands here and there, but the variance is very high because there are always several players willing to outbid you in order to acquire play chips and take part in the game. Additionally, it is just plain boring to play against newbies that don’t understand the subtleties of the game and follow their gut feelings.
Our Final Word On Free Poker Games
Free poker online has its uses. We agree with the standpoint that you need to offer free games to entice people into becoming full-time grinders, but that is where it ends. In our opinion, it makes no sense to play free poker games for too long because you are not internalizing the correct decision making process required to win at real money poker.
Another thing to take on board is the thrill of making (or losing) your own money. If you don't experience this feeling while playing online poker, you may get yourself into deep water the first time you visit a brick and mortar casino or play a live .
If you want to learn more about the game before handing over your hard-earned dollars, that's perfectly fine. Simply read our , watch strategy videos, and play TXL Hold’em Heads-Up on . This will familiarize you with the basics of the game without anyone being out of pocket.
We also recommend reading our beginner strategy guides and watching videos of more experienced players talking you through tricky situations. Basically, there are plenty of ways to learn the game without running the risk of losing money. In fact, the more money is removed from the situation, the more likely people are to share their honey stacks with aspiring poker players.
Once you feel comfortable with the basics and some fundamental strategies, it's time to make the step up to the small stakes cash games and tournaments. Yes, it may be painful to start 20+ bubacks, but believe us when we say that it is the quickest way to becoming a decent poker player.
Making mistakes is part of the game. The sooner you start paying for them, the sooner you will stop making them. Otherwise, you will end up like the thousands of people that PokerStars' rich from playing their free poker online game. Ouch.
Have a Question About Free Online Poker?
We hope you found our reasoning behind why you shouldn't play free poker online persuasive. If you still can't shake off why you shouldn't play fake money poker, then be sure to check out our FAQs section below. Alternatively, if you're ready to dive into the world of , check out our dedicated page which lists the best sites ranked and reviewed for US players.
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Is free online poker rigged?
FREE online poker games are not rigged. In fact, the cards players receive and the way the software deals the cards is far LESS random than the turn over of play chips for goods in app stores and online games providers. Websites like Zynga Poker allow you to play free poker online for free, sort of, because while you might start out with play chips awarded for signing up or achieving missions. To get ahead, you need to buy extra play chips with REAL money.
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How do you win real money on free poker apps?
You can’t win real money on free poker apps unless it is a promotional bonus for signing up or depositing funds to play real-cash poker games. Apps like Zynga Poker allow you to win tremendous amounts of play chips by competing in tournaments and missions. However, to get ahead, you need to buy extra play chips with REAL money.
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What are the benefits of free internet poker?
Players that play free internet poker get to enjoy the game without having to worry about losing cash. This is particularly attractive for beginners that are still learning the rules of the game or veterans that want to relax without the pressure of winning. Unfortunately, the benefit of not losing money is also its biggest drawback because it removes the importance of each decision, thus making the game less valuable to learn from or compete in.
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Why is free poker online bad?
Free poker online is bad because play money loses all meaning. At lower levels of real-cash poker, you hardly break a sweat when running a level one opponent tabling all sorts of crazy lines to the point of being tilted. But when it costs nothing to play, players have no reservations about putting anything together because, hey, they haven't got skimmed dry yet.
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Is play money poker pointless?
Yes, play money poker is pointless if you've learned the very basics of the game. Sitting around all day tabling any two cards because you don't care if you lose play money is pointless because you're not learning anything. This is why free poker online sites like Chumba Casino have Sweeps Coins, which can be exchanged for gift vouchers and transferred to real-cash sites. It learns the game without having to spend money, but you must be willing to spend a little if you want to test things out in a more competitive environment.
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Does playing free online poker count as experience?
Playing free online poker doesn't count as experience because you become erratic. Even the worst poker players have a general idea of what's good and bad. As a result, if you notice someone is playing complete junk, you know they don't know what they're doing. But when someone doesn't seem to care if they lose, you can't gauge their ability. So, in essence, play money loses all meaning.
