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A poker skin is a poker site with its own brand that actually
uses another poker brand as its backend software provider. When
you're playing poker at a "skin" of another room, the look and feel
are somewhat different, but you're playing with the same players and
the same software as the original poker network. Empire Poker is a
skin of
Party Poker, and
Interpoker is a skin of Cryptologic's poker network. And there
are dozens of skins based on the
Prima Poker network of poker rooms.
Another way of saying it is that some poker rooms have multiple
"doorways" to get into them. Those doorways are skins.
Until recently,
Ultimate Bet was a stand-alone cardroom with no skins.
(Ultimate Bet is actually just the website name, by the way. The
software and the company behind Ultimate Bet is Excapsa Software.)
But they've recently (in the last few months) launched a couple of
new skins with new themes for their players.
Why Have a Skin at All?
If you're running an online poker room, you absolutely must have
action. If you don't have games going on, then players will go
elsewhere to find games. It's like eBay; buyers visit eBay because
that's the most likely place to find the merchandise they want. And
sellers post their items on eBay because more buyers visit there
than any other online auction site.
The same holds true for online poker. Party Poker and
Poker Stars have an almost unassailable competitive advantage
because of the volume of players they have at their sites at any
given time. This large number of players gives their traffic a
variety of games to choose from without having to wait for a seat,
or play in a game that's above or below their desired stakes.
So Ultimate Bet's motivation in having these new skins is clear
and simple; they want more players, and this is one way to get more
players.
One Thing to Keep In Mind About Ultimate Bet Skins
If you already have an account at Ultimate Bet, you cannot open a
new account at one of their new skins. You're already a customer of
Ultimate Bet's, and it doesn't benefit them in any way for you to
collect all new first deposit bonuses or take advantage of any of
the other promotions available at these new sites. (Remember, their
motivation for allowing these skins is to recruit MORE players;
shuffling you over to another account doesn't do anything to
increase the action at their site.)
Excapsa and Ultimate Bet's New Skins
In a sense, you could even say that Ultimate Bet is a skin of
Excapsa Software. They're the company that owns Ultimate Bet, and
possibly one of the reasons they're interested in getting new
players on board is their recent
IPO.
To the best of my knowledge, the new poker skins of Excapsa/Ultimate
Bet are:
- Upperclass Poker - the poker arm of the Aviation Club de France
- GreenTie Poker (An unashamedly male-oriented version of the
cardroom.)
-
Poker Share (They offer equity in their company for people
who play there a lot.)
- Ultimate Poker (This is basically just Ultimate Bet for the
UK market.)
- DevilFish Poker (The signature room of the infamous poker pro)
- DV8 Poker (I don't have any details about this one yet.)
I'll eventually add articles about the individual Excapsa skins
outlining their benefits and special offers. I won't really be able
to comment on playing there, but I did the already in my review of
Ultimate Bet, and it's still the same software.
This page was last updated on March 30, 2006.
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