GGPoker review: games, rakeback, bonuses and safety

GGPoker is the largest online poker site in the world. On an ordinary evening more than 150,000 players are logged in, and its cash tables hold about four times as many players as PokerStars. It runs the official WSOP Online bracelet series and the Spin & Gold jackpot games, and it gives back up to 80% of rake through its Ocean Rewards programme.

The network started in Asia in 2014 and took the GGPoker name in 2017. It has led the world in cash-game traffic since August 2022, and its owner, NSUS, bought the WSOP brand in 2024. In return, GG keeps tight control over software. Third-party HUDs and trackers can’t run beside the client, and the welcome bonus is paid out gradually as you generate rake, not credited up front.

Below is what that means for your money and your game: bonuses, rake and rakeback, traffic, software, payments, verification and safety.

GGPoker bonuses and promotions

New players choose one of two welcome offers at their first deposit. Daily missions and leaderboards then run on top of it. Neither offer needs a bonus code: you pick one in the cashier when you deposit.

Welcome bonus: 100% up to $600

The main offer matches your first deposit 100%, up to $600. The minimum deposit is $10, and further deposits made within 60 days also count toward the $600.

The match doesn’t land in your balance straight away. GG releases it in $1 steps: one dollar for every $5 you pay in rake and tournament fees. In other words, the bonus returns an extra 20% of your rake, and whatever hasn’t been released after 90 days expires.

How much of the $600 you actually collect depends on how much rake you pay each day. Here are three players who deposit the full amount:

Depositing $600 doesn’t speed anything up. The only thing that sets the pace is rake, so a casual player who deposits $50 collects exactly as much as one who deposits $600 and plays the same volume.

The $100 rewards package

The alternative suits players who won’t rake thousands of dollars. Deposit $20 and you get $100 in free-play tickets, paid out over your first days. The tickets still have to be played, but no rake target stands between you and them.

A simple rule: at micro stakes or a few sessions a week, take the package; with regular volume, take the match. Both offers are covered in more detail in our guide to the GGPoker first deposit bonus.

Honeymoon missions and the Daily Freebie

For their first month, new accounts get Honeymoon for Newcomers. You opt in within 7 days of registering, then complete one simple mission a day. Completing the missions unlocks up to $400 in rewards.

The Daily Freebie is smaller but runs every day: a free ticket for a low-stakes Spin & Gold or Mystery Battle Royale, which you claim in the client. It’s worth cents, not dollars, but it costs nothing. More free offers are collected in our page on GGPoker no-deposit offers.

Leaderboards and tournament series

Regular players get most of their extra value from the daily leaderboards. Each format has its own: NLH, PLO, Rush & Cash, Spin & Gold, All-in or Fold, Short Deck, Flip & Go and Mystery Battle Royale. The largest pay $50,000 a day each. GG’s promotions for October 2026 alone added up to $18 million. See how the boards are scored in our GGPoker leaderboards guide.

For tournament players, the big draw is the series calendar:

• WSOP Online, every late summer. In 2026 it had 33 bracelet events, and the $5,000 Main Event drew 6,008 entries for a $28,538,000 prize pool. Andrii Novak of Ukraine won $3,931,259.
• WSOP Super Circuit Online, in spring: 18 rings and $180 million guaranteed in March 2026.
• Bounty Hunters and other themed series. The October 2026 edition guaranteed $100 million.
• GGMasters every Sunday: a $150 buy-in with a $1 million guarantee.

Weekly schedules and satellites are covered in our GGPoker tournaments guide.

Rake and rakeback

GG’s rake is close to what other big sites charge. Where GG differs is how much of that rake comes back to you.

How much rake GGPoker takes

In cash games GG takes 5% of each pot, up to a cap. The cap rises with the stakes and falls when fewer players are in the hand, so heads-up and three-way pots pay less than full multiway ones. Spin & Gold and All-in or Fold sit-and-gos carry a fee of about 7% of the buy-in; most multi-table tournaments charge around 10%.

GG publishes the full rake table by game, stake and number of players. We break it down, with examples, in our GGPoker rake guide. If rake is new to you, start with how rake works in poker.

In six-max Hold’em, for example, a $0.25/$0.50 pot pays at most $1 heads-up and $4 with five or more players; at $1/$2 the caps are $1.50 and $6. From $2/$5 up, GG sets the caps in big blinds. Here is the full six-max table from GG’s website:

Ocean Rewards: how rakeback works

On 30 January 2026 Ocean Rewards replaced the old Fish Buffet programme. Every $1 of rake earns a base of 100 Tide Points, adjusted by your PVI (more on that below). Points move you up eight tiers, and each tier pays a larger share of rake back as GEMs, which you swap for cash in the rewards store.

GG itself promises only “up to 80%”. The share per tier in the table below is the estimate players and poker media work with:

In the Ocean Rewards section of the client, the same ladder looks like this:

There’s no monthly requalification. A tier you reach stays with you, so a good month isn’t lost when the next one is quiet. Tide Points do reset to zero on 1 January, but the tier itself is kept until the end of the following year; our GGPoker rakeback guide shows what that means in practice. The store gives a better rate when you exchange GEMs in larger packages: 1,000 GEMs buy $1 in the smallest ones.

To turn the tiers into money, take a regular who pays $500 in rake a month at a neutral PVI:

• That’s 50,000 Tide Points a month, so Crab (about 30%) arrives at the end of the first month.
• Turtle (about 40%) comes after four months, at 200,000 points.
• A full year adds up to 600,000 points, which is still short of Octopus at 750,000. Rakeback for most of the year is $150–$200 a month.

A player paying $2,000 a month collects 2.4 million points a year and reaches Dolphin, around 60%. The top tiers are for very high volume or high stakes.

PVI: why rakeback differs between players

The Player Value Index is a multiplier on your Tide Points. GG doesn’t publish the formula. Reported inputs include which games you choose, how varied your opponents are, your deposit and withdrawal history, and whether you take part in promotions. Recreational players tend to get a high PVI. Winning high-volume regulars have reported values well below 1, which can cut an 80% headline down to a fraction of that.

Don’t plan your bankroll around the top rakeback figure. Play a few weeks, then open Ocean Rewards and compare the points you got with your rake. That ratio is your real rakeback rate.

Bonus and rakeback together

The welcome match and Ocean Rewards both work off the same rake, so in your first 90 days they stack. Here is the first three months for the $500-a-month regular, with a deposit of at least $300:

• Rake paid: $1,500.
• Welcome bonus released: $300 (20% of rake).
• Ocean Rewards: roughly $400 over the three months as the player climbs from Fish to Crab.

That’s about $700 back, close to half of the rake, before PVI. After day 90 only Ocean Rewards is left, so the effective rate drops to the tier rate. It’s worth putting your heaviest volume into those first three months.

To compare Ocean Rewards with other sites’ programs, see our guide to poker rakeback; for rake, rewards and traffic against PokerStars, see GGPoker vs PokerStars.

Traffic and games

Traffic is GGPoker’s strongest card. The network regularly has more than 150,000 players online and over 10,000 at cash tables, more than any other site. You find a game at any hour and any stake, from $0.01/$0.02 up to high-stakes tables that run every evening.

The lobby covers far more than Hold’em:

• Cash games: No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha with four, five and six cards, and Short Deck.
• Rush & Cash: fast-fold cash games. You fold and move to a new table straight away, so you play far more hands an hour.
• All-in or Fold: every decision is shove or fold, a quick format popular with casual players.
• Spin & Gold: three- or six-player jackpot sit-and-gos. A random multiplier sets the prize pool, up to 200,000 times the buy-in. By September 2026 the format had paid 13 million-dollar prizes that year. Our Spin & Gold guide explains the multipliers.
• Flip & Go: a tournament that opens with all-in flips; survivors move on to normal play with a deep stack.
• Battle Royale and Mystery Battle Royale: short battle tournaments with fixed or mystery prizes.
• Tournaments: from small daily events to series with eight-figure guarantees, plus Mystery Bounty and progressive knockout formats.

Spin & Gold in numbers

Spin & Gold is the format casual players come to GG for, so it’s worth knowing how the prize pool works. Before the game starts, a wheel sets a multiplier. Most games land on x2 or x3, which means a small prize and winner takes all. Bigger multipliers are rare: at a $5 buy-in, the x200,000 top prize comes up about once in 10 million games.

The bigger the multiplier, the more places get paid. Up to x5 the winner takes everything, at x10 two players are paid, and from x50 up all three get a share. A $1 million pool splits $500,000, $300,000 and $200,000.

The fee is about 7% of the buy-in. Optional insurance, at twice the buy-in, covers you against landing on the lowest multiplier.

How soft are the games?

No site publishes the share of recreational players, so nobody has an exact figure. What you can describe is how GG keeps its field casual:

• A lot of its marketing targets recreational players: streamers, Asian markets, WSOP branding.
• Without third-party HUDs, regulars can’t buy a database of their opponents. Smart HUD counts only hands you saw yourself, so every unknown player is a real unknown.
• Spin & Gold, All-in or Fold and Flip & Go bring in players who would never sit at a regular cash table.
• PVI is reported to give recreational players more rakeback than winning regulars.

That doesn’t make every table easy. Mid and high-stakes Hold’em and the busier Rush & Cash pools have plenty of strong regulars. Casual players are easiest to find at lower stakes and in the jackpot and fast formats built for them. Table selection still matters, and here it relies on your own notes and Smart HUD stats.

Software and features

GG builds its own client, and most tools that other sites leave to third-party programs are built into it.

Desktop client

The client runs on Windows 10 or later (11 recommended) and macOS 12 or later on Macs from 2017 onwards, Apple Silicon included. It needs about 3 GB of disk space. Support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 and macOS 11 ends in 2027. Download the installer only from GG’s own website. Setup and settings are covered in our GGPoker desktop client guide.

Mobile app

The app needs iOS 15 or Android 10. On iPhone it comes from the App Store. On Android it’s on Google Play in most regions, and elsewhere you install it as an APK from ggpoker.com. Your account, balance and tickets are the same on every device, and the app runs cash games, tournaments and Spin & Gold, with several tables at once in portrait mode. See our GGPoker mobile app review for the details.

PokerCraft and Smart HUD

PokerCraft is GG’s built-in tracker. It shows your results graph with an all-in EV line, so you can tell bad luck from bad play, and it lets you filter results by position, starting hand and game. It also replays any hand you played and lets you share hands as clips. In a long downswing, the gap between the EV line and real results is the first thing to check; our guide to variance explains why.

Smart HUD puts basic stats on opponents at the table: VPIP, PFR, 3-bet, c-bet, went to showdown and won at showdown. It builds them only from hands you saw yourself, so nobody can buy a ready-made database. More on both tools in our PokerCraft guide.

This is what the PokerCraft EV graph looks like, with real winnings plotted against the all-in EV line:

HUDs, trackers and banned software

GG has never allowed third-party HUDs over its tables. Until autumn 2026, players could still import their downloaded hand histories into trackers such as PokerTracker 4 or Holdem Manager 3 to study their own play.

On 15 October 2026 GG went further and banned all third-party poker software. The named list includes PokerTracker 4, Holdem Manager 3, Hand2Note, DriveHUD 2, Jurojin, StarsCaption, Intuitive Tables, Lobbyze, Equilab and AutoHotkey, and GG says the list isn’t complete. The client won’t let you play for real money while a banned program is running. Ordinary window managers such as PowerToys remain allowed.

The trigger was a security incident in early October 2026. Remote-access malware hidden in third-party tools let attackers see high-stakes players’ screens. GG traced the money to a crypto wallet and handed its findings to the exchange and to law enforcement.

Close every poker tool before you open GGPoker, including timers and calculators you used elsewhere. Breaking the software policy can get your account restricted or closed.

Client security settings

Alongside the ban, GG added a Client Security section to the game settings. Screen Guard blocks screenshots, recording and screen sharing of your tables, and “Protect the whole Client” extends that to the lobby, cashier and history. Connection Monitor warns about apps with suspicious connections, such as remote-control tools. Allowed Processes is a whitelist for programs you trust, and DNS Check looks for DNS hijacking. GG also asks players to turn on two-factor authentication, a passkey and a separate Fund Password for the cashier.

Table features

Some table features change the money side of the game, not just the look.

The best known is EV Cashout, a form of all-in insurance. When you’re all in heads-up on the flop or turn with at least 60% equity, you can take your share of the pot now for a small fee, about 1%. The hand is still dealt out, but the result no longer changes your balance.

Here is how it works in practice. When you’re all in against one opponent on the flop or turn and your equity is 60% or more, the client offers EV Cashout and shows your equity and the amount you would receive. Accept it and that amount, minus the fee, is yours straight away. The rest of the board is still dealt, but the result no longer moves your balance: lose the hand and you keep the cashout, win it and you still get only the cashout.

With numbers: you hold A♠ A♥ against K♣ K♦ on a Q♦ 7♣ 2♠ flop, all in for a $200 pot. Your equity is 91.6%, so EV Cashout offers about $183 before the fee. Without it, you win $200 roughly eleven times in twelve and nothing the twelfth time. Over many hands that averages the same $183, so the option costs you the fee and saves you the swing.

It makes sense when the pot is a big share of your bankroll, or when a bad beat would knock you off your game. If the pot is a normal size for your stakes, running it out is cheaper over time, because the fee is pure cost.

Other features include:

• Run It Three Times: when both players agree, the rest of the board is dealt three times and the pot is split by result.
• Rabbit hunt: shows the cards that would have come after a hand ends early.
• Straddle at selected cash tables.
• Snap Cam and emotes: short video reactions and animated emojis, which you can mute.
• Staking: sell action in your tournaments to backers straight from the client, with payouts split automatically.

Deposits and withdrawals

The GGPoker cashier lists only the methods available in your country. The usual set is Visa and Mastercard, e-wallets (Skrill, Neteller, MuchBetter, payz, AstroPay, Luxon Pay), Paysafecard vouchers, bank transfer and crypto: Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and USDC on several networks. The minimum deposit is $10 for most methods and higher for crypto.

Withdrawals follow a closed loop: money goes back to the method you deposited with, where that method supports payouts. GG first reviews each request, usually within 24 to 72 hours. After that, e-wallets and crypto arrive within hours, while cards and bank transfers take a few business days. Minimums and any fees depend on the method, and the cashier shows them before you confirm.

Deposit with the method you plan to cash out to, ideally an e-wallet or crypto. That keeps your first withdrawal simple and fast.

Step-by-step guides: how to deposit on GGPoker and how to withdraw from GGPoker.

GGPoker verification

At sign-up GG asks for your name, date of birth and address, and checks your age. Document checks usually come before the first withdrawal, or earlier if the security team asks. Larger and repeated withdrawals can trigger extra checks, including proof of where the money came from.

You’ll need:

• a passport, national ID card or driving licence;
• proof of address dated within the last six months, such as a bank statement or utility bill.

Send clear photos or PDFs of the originals. GG doesn’t accept screenshots of documents.

Verify right after your first deposit, while the balance is small. Then your first withdrawal goes straight to payment instead of waiting for document review.

The full process, with common rejection reasons, is in our GGPoker verification guide. If you haven’t opened an account yet, start with how to sign up on GGPoker.

Is GGPoker safe?

GGPoker.com is run by GG International Ltd under a licence from the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission. UK players use a separate site, operated by NSUS Ltd under a UK Gambling Commission licence, and several European markets and Ontario have their own locally licensed versions. BMM Testlabs certifies the random number generator. Which site covers your country is explained in our GGPoker countries guide.

The security record has problems, but GG has dealt with them in public:

• 2020: GG banned 40 accounts for real-time assistance (solvers running during play) and returned $1,175,305 to 4,329 affected players.
• December 2023: a player known as “Moneytaker69” abused a client bug to estimate all-in equity. GG patched the client, banned him, confiscated $29,795 and recalculated the affected tournament payouts.
• October 2026: after the remote-access attack, GG banned third-party software and added the security settings described above.

Since October 2026 GG also runs Win-Rate Anomaly Detection, which flags accounts whose decisions are too accurate to be human. GG doesn’t publish its thresholds. For your own account, the strongest protection is two-factor authentication plus a Fund Password. Then even a stolen login can’t move money out.

On Trustpilot GGPoker scores 1.3 out of 5. Most complaints are about bad beats, “rigged” deals and account closures. A certified RNG and public refunds aren’t what a rigged site looks like, but closures are real: break the rules on software, multi-accounting or VPN use and GG can keep the balance.

Responsible gambling tools

GGPoker’s tools are basic but cover the main cases:

• Self-exclusion for 24 hours, 3, 7, 30, 60, 120 or 180 days, one year, five years or permanently. It logs you out immediately and can’t be reversed until the period ends.
• Deposit limits, set through customer support by email or live chat.
• Spending history in the cashier, to check how much you’ve put in.

GG also recommends blocking software such as BetBlocker or GamBlock if you want to keep yourself off gambling sites altogether. Its own responsible gaming page lists the options. Where to get help in your country is on our responsible gambling page.

GGPoker pros and cons

Put together, the strengths and weaknesses look like this:

Who GGPoker suits

The same features help some players and hold back others:

• Recreational playersGames at any hour, quick formats and plenty of opponents who play for fun.
• Tournament playersWSOP Online, Bounty Hunters and Sunday guarantees bigger than anywhere else online.
• Spin & Gold and fast-format fansJackpot sit-and-gos, All-in or Fold and Flip & Go run around the clock.
• High-volume cash grindersThe traffic is unmatched, but PVI can cut rakeback and there’s no HUD edge.
• Bonus huntersThe $600 match is large on paper, but it pays out only through rake.
• Players who study with trackers and HUDsSince October 2026 no third-party poker software may run beside the client.
• Players from the US, France, Spain, Italy or AustraliaGGPoker has no real-money site for these countries.

GGPoker FAQ