Complete Hollywood Poker Review

Amongst the huge number of online poker rooms available, Hollywood Poker clearly stands out. Right from your first visit, you are left in no doubt that this is place for players looking for some glitz and glamour to go with their poker. Dozens of top-name celebrities from film and TV are always online, taking part in high-stakes games that anyone can join. Hollywood Poker offers a large range of games through it’s attractive software, and there’s always plenty of tournaments to join, so if you want an online poker experience that packs excitement and glamour, check out Hollywood Poker!

Hollywood Poker’s signup bonus is a little different from most, as you actually get to choose from 5 different offers, from a basic 200% match up to $200, to an astounding 600% up to $1500! In addition, Hollywood Poker will throw in free gifts ranging from books and calendars up to iPod Nanos and shuffles for the top offers.

What separates the offers is the rate at which they are unlocked, with all offers requiring you to earn bonus points by playing for real money or entering tournaments. The larger offers are unlocked more slowly, so while the 200% offer only need 6 points per bonus $, the top offer requires 12 points per $ unlocked. For this reason, Hollywood Poker is a great place for frequent, or high stakes players, who can really take advantage of the bonus.

Hollywood Poker rewards players with Poker Points for playing in ring games and signing up for tournaments. These points can be redeemed for free entry into tournaments and entry into competitions for Hollywood Poker merchandise or regular cash rewards and draws. There isn’t a massive range of items to spend your points on if you don’t go in for scantily clad ladies, but at least you can turn them back into cash and play some more poker, which should be the real reason for joining any poker room!

Part of the Ongame network, Hollywood Poker is amongst the top 5 online poker rooms for traffic, and it many celebrities act as a constant traffic draw for new players, making for some pretty easy games down at the low-stakes end of things. Go up a few notches though, and things start to become quite tough, with celebrity games often attracting some truly tough opposition! There are plenty of Holdem games though at all levels, plus a fair amount of traffic for it’s Omaha games.

Hollywood Poker offers the useful feature of in-browser Java-based play, which will appeal to those players on Mac’s or wanting to use someone else’s computer. The software is very solid and play is fast, but it can be something of a resource hog on older machines. Particularly good is the amount of features on offer, such as note-taking, avatar display customisation and keyboard controls. Particularly nice is the facility to create your own games and specify game-type and stakes.

Hollywood Poker offers a number of promotions to keep players interested, running monthly freeroll games for new players, and offering extra freerolls for players with higher status, this being based on the number of Poker Points earned during the previous month. Extra bonuses are available for players who get dealt certain special hands, such as pocket Aces or quad Aces, Kings, Queens or Jacks. Hollywood Poker also run regular Bounty tournaments where prizes are awarded for knocking out celebrities.

While the frequency of Hollywood Pokers tournaments has unfortunately decreased since they left the US market, there are still plenty of tournament events to join, from $1 buy-in guaranteed $1000 first prize tournaments at the weekend, to a large number of guaranteed prize fund tournaments all through the week. Special Celebrity tournaments such as the Celebrity Classic and the Michael Woods Celebrity Invitational are also regularly held, as well as satellite tournaments for many of the larger poker events such as the WSOP.

For player support, Hollywood Poker provides comprehensive FAQ’s on their website, and a contact form for particular queries. Additional phone support would be nice, but at least response via the their form is quick, usually under 1 hour, and the staff are generally pretty knowledgeable.