- Bitcoin poker room BetcoinPoker has integrated its poker client with the Winning Poker Network (WPN) to allow its players access to tournaments on the much larger network.
- The attractiveness of the agreement for the niche Bitcoin-only sites is the ability to offer access to much bigger tournaments than their own limited player pool can provide.
Players on Bitcoin-only online poker room Betcoin Poker can now access network-wide Sit and Gos and multi-table tournaments from Winning Poker Network (WPN).
Betcoin Poker is promoting the new relationship by running additional satellites to the monthly WPN $100k guaranteed tournament on July 13.
Betcoin Poker uses the WPN software client but, until this change, the player pool was entirely separate from the network and all games were denominated in Bitcoins. Cash game tables will remain separate.
Americas Cardroom, the leading poker room on WPN, introduced Bitcoin deposits in January. Bitcoin deposits are immediately converted into US dollars for use at the dollar-denominated cash game tables and tournaments.
The Betcoin advantage appears to be the ability to instantly withdraw in Bitcoin, an option that isn’t yet available on the Americas Cardroom cashier.
When asked by a player why Betcoin did not share cash game tables as well, a Betcoin rep replied that “tournament play is very straight forward because you are simply buying chips for the tournament in dollars but using btc. The cash games present some different challenges.”
Betcoin competes with SealsWithClubs, the leading Bitcoin-only online poker room. The network maitains approximately 100 concurrent cash game seats.
At the time of writing, Betcoin had no cash games running. It will be hoping the draw of bigger tournaments and guarantees supported by the network—much larger than what Seals can offer—will bring in more players to its cash game tables.
