iPoker adds anonymous tables

Playtech’s iPoker network has added anonymous tables on certain skins, in a move in keeping with recent efforts to improve network ecology.

The tables are already available at various stakes on the TitanPoker skin, while other skins such as recent additions Betclic, Everest and Betfair either have already introduced or will introduce the option until it is eventually available across the entire network.

“We offer these tables where we believe it serves the purpose we have defined for them; allow our players to play freely without having to worry about being tracked or “targeted” by others,” iPoker operations manager Asaf Younger told eGaming Review.

Younger explained that this relates especially to “the more recreational and less experienced players,” and that Playtech would make further assessments of the anonymous tables based on “feedback and requests brought to us by our players’ community.”

The move follows iPoker’s implementation of a two-tier system last year, with TitanPoker and bet365 among several skins on the upper tier who have ring-faced player pools at certain games and stakes.

Anonymous tables will be available across both tiers of the network, in No Limit Hold’em cash games with stakes ranging from US$0.10/0.20 to $0.50/$1.

The introduction of a two-tier system followed an investigation into network ecology where “the main goal…was to extend the players’ lifetime expectancy,” Younger explained in a recent interview with eGR.

“Most importantly we continue seeing a balance of all types of players on both tiers [which] is extending the lifetime expectancy of players on both tier one and tier two,” Younger added.

iPoker is not the first network to add anonymous tables. A number of Microgaming skins, including Ladbrokes, were the first to go down the route in 2010, while the Bodog Poker Network has since made all tables anonymous.

Read the full interview with Asaf Younger in April’s issue of eGaming Review. For subscription options, click here.