Betfair Poker is an independent poker room that is part of Betfair.com, which in turn is owned by The Sporting Exchange Ltd., one of the largest sporting exchanges globally. The poker room is not one of the big ones that you see in the industry, but is quite popular and growing at a very rapid pace.

While not being on a poker network may seem like a downer, there are positives too, as playing at Betfair Poker gives you access to the other sites that Betfair.com owns – the sports book, casino, arcade games, and much more. Betfair Poker is licensed by the Lotteries and Gaming Authority of Malta and does not currently accept players from the United States of America.

With the ban on US players post-UIGEA, the poker room is concentrating on getting on board players from Europe and other geographies where online gambling is permitted, and doing a fairly good job, going by the steadily increasing membership count. The popularity of this poker room is mainly due to the great features, functionality, ease of play, and promotions.

If you are good at poker, Betfair Poker may be a great place to notch up some wins and make some money as the games are fast and also ‘loose’. A greater number of low-skilled players at the tables means a large number of low and medium stake games on offer.

The traffic volume at Betfair Poker is not one of the greatest currently. However, if you place it against the backdrop of it being an independent poker room, the numbers seem good enough, and the good news is that they are consistently increasing.

Data collected till May 2009 shows that there are over 5,000 players at the poker room during peak hours, 5,200 in fact. During peak hours, on an average you will find 1,200 players at the cash game tables in the poker room, with the remaining 4,000 hitting the tournaments. The numbers mean that this is currently a mid-range traffic poker room. Despite being an independent poker room, Betfair Poker has managed to make it to the Top 20 list of online poker rooms in terms of traffic volume.

One of the cool things about Betfair Poker is that the poker room runs on its own software. However, it was not always an independent poker room with its own software. Earlier, the room was driven by poker software from Cryptologic, a well-known name in the online gambling software development industry.

The new software provides the poker room with some lip-smacking features, including multi-table play that allows you to play at 15 tables at a time. Other features include the ability to see your folded cards, table resizing, the mini-view feature, excellent graphics and superb sound effects.

You will mostly find Texas Hold’em games at Betfair Poker, with the game being available in no limit, limit, and pot limit options. The stakes for no limit and pot limit games range between $0.02/S0.04 and $100/$200. For limit games, you can even find a $1,000/$2,000 game.