GGPoker review: the biggest poker room by traffic, with a rake you should price in
GGPoker claims the top spot in online poker by cash-game traffic and leans on tournaments, Rush & Cash and PokerCraft. We checked the traffic claims, the 5% rake and who can actually sit down.
GGPoker is the strongest poker product we reviewed this year on features: a deep tournament lobby, Rush & Cash fast-fold tables, a free hand tracker and soft recreational games. The rake is a standard 5% in cash games and the site has had cheating and security scandals, though it acts publicly. Whether it beats PokerStars depends on where you live, since both are blocked in different places. Check eligibility before depositing.
Best for Recreational and tournament players in eligible countries who want big fields and soft games
GGPoker · run by GGPoker (NSUS Group) · Free to join; real-money buy-ins · ggpoker.com
what holds up
- Reported as the largest online poker room by cash-game traffic since August 2022 (Wikipedia)
- Deep tournament lobby, with the AOF Sit & Go and bounty formats built in
- Rush & Cash fast-fold tables, with random Cash Drops advertised
- PokerCraft stores every hand played for replay and review
- Publicly bans and fines players found using real-time assistance
what does not
- Standard cash-game rake is reported at 5% at all stakes
- Traffic claims conflict: some sources say PokerStars still has roughly double the peak cash traffic
- Blocked in many countries; the sister site showed an unavailable-in-your-country message from Vietnam
- Past scandals include real-time assistance cheating and a client exploit leaking equity data
- Rakeback was restructured in January 2026, so older rakeback figures may be wrong
the house rules, in short
- Operator
- GGPoker, part of NSUS Group
- Founded
- 2014, first in Asia; UK licence 2017 (Wikipedia)
- Games
- Texas hold'em, Omaha variants, short deck, Rush & Cash, AOF Sit & Go
- Cash-game rake
- 5% (secondhand reports); Rush & Cash caps reported at 0.5 to 1 big blind
- Rakeback
- Ocean Rewards replaced Fish Buffet on 30 January 2026 (reported)
- Tools
- PokerCraft hand tracker and replayer
- WSOP link
- WSOP brand sold to NSUS Group for $500 million in August 2024
- Bonus terms last updated
- 12 September 2026 (Natural8 policy page)
Ask poker players which room is biggest and you will get two answers, depending on whom you ask and which week. GGPoker says it is number one. PokerStars says it is still the benchmark. We went looking for evidence, found the traffic numbers do not agree, and learned the more useful question is a different one: what do you pay to sit at the table, and can you sit down at all?
The traffic argument
Wikipedia records that in August 2022 GGPoker became the largest online poker room by cash-game traffic volume. It adds that the company bought the WSOP brand from Caesars for $500 million in August 2024, and that GGPoker co-hosted the 2020 WSOP Online Main Event, whose prize pool earned a Guinness record.
Secondhand comparisons disagree. One guide we read puts GGPoker at about 36% of observable cash seats against 25% for PokerStars. Another says PokerStars' peak cash traffic is roughly double. These come from affiliate-style sites, with no primary PokerScout report to settle it, so treat "GGPoker overtook PokerStars" as likely in total volume and unproven everywhere else. Our own PokerStars review covers the other side.
Tournaments and Rush & Cash
GGPoker's tournament page opens with "No One Does Tournaments Like We Do", and the lobby backs the boast with bounty formats, flip-and-go events and the AOF Sit & Go, which GGPoker presents as the fastest way to get into the money.
Rush & Cash is the fast-fold cash format: fold and you are moved to a new table. The Rush & Cash page advertises random Cash Drops. A fast-fold game multiplies the number of hands you play per hour, and that multiplies the rake you pay in the same way.
A note on these pictures. Several of the capture pages come from Natural8, because GGPoker's own pages redirect there: visiting ggpoker.co.uk lands on Natural8 with a GGPoker tracking tag. Natural8 is GGPoker's sister brand on the same network, so the games match, but the branding does not.
The rake, in numbers
Secondhand reports put the standard cash-game rake at 5% at every stake. Rush & Cash reportedly uses the same percentage with lower caps, around half to one big blind, and charges nothing at tables that are not full. We did not fund an account and have no hands of our own to check these figures against, so treat them as claims.
What 5% means: if the pot is $20, up to $1 may go to the house, subject to the cap. Across thousands of hands this adds up to far more than a beginner expects. Rakeback softens it. A guide says Ocean Rewards replaced the Fish Buffet program on 30 January 2026, and old estimates of 30% to 55% effective rakeback may no longer apply.
The bonus policy, updated 12 September 2026, is the document to read before taking any offer. Releasing a bonus slowly as you pay rake is a common poker habit, and it works as a reason to play more.
Tools, and the integrity record
PokerCraft is the best argument for GGPoker's software. The page says every hand you play is added to its database, where you can replay, filter and analyse it.
Wikipedia also lists the bad news. GGPoker permanently banned 40 accounts for real-time assistance and confiscated $1.18 million from 13 offenders, and it patched a client flaw that leaked hand-equity data after a player exploited it. A site that catches and announces cheating is better than one that stays quiet, but the incidents show that cheating is a live problem at the biggest tables.
Who can play
This decides everything. The Natural8 home page showed us "We are sorry, but our services are unavailable in the country you are in", from a Vietnam connection, while subpages loaded. Wikipedia lists a Pennsylvania licence from 2021 and an Ontario licence from 2022. Rules are different in every country, so check the restricted list in the terms and never use a VPN to get around a block.
Our take
GGPoker is the one to try if you live where it is allowed, enjoy tournaments and want a tracker built in. The rake is not low, and the winners are the better players, not the casual ones. Poker involves skill, but most recreational players lose over time. Stake only what you can lose, and adults only. If it stops being fun, ask the site to lock your account.
18+ · T&Cs apply · play within limits