Poker Articles

What is a Poker Skin?
by Steve "Shark" Hathaway
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

PokerTime, Royal Vegas Poker, Dream Poker, Bet365, River Belle, Wild Jack, and many more are all "skins" of Prima Poker software. Poker sites share banking, software and support personnel to attempt to handle many languages and millions of transactions.

In essence, what this means is that by logging into one of these 'skins', you are taken to the same online poker server as all Prima players, and can sit at the same tables. When you sit at a PokerTime table, you may be sitting at the same table with players logged into Dream Poker.

Imagine that you are on your way to play poker at your local. Instead of going through the front door wearing a yellow shirt, you decide to use the side or back entrance, wearing a blue shirt. This is essentially what you are doing when you log into "skin". You use a different door, but you get to the same .

What advantages are there to having accounts at multiple Poker skins?

Each skin requires you to create a new account, with a different screen name. However, this makes you eligible for a new deposit bonus! This way, you can get four new user deposit bonuses for playing at skins, instead of just one. These deposit bonuses really add up, and they are quite helpful for building up your poker bankroll when you are getting started online. Most sites allow multiple accounts. Some make you change your email address. You always will need to change your screen name so you can't play against yourself at two different sites.

Similarly, each site offers reload bonuses independently, and if you don't have accounts at multiple skins, you may miss out on a great reload bonus. For those interested in more bonus money (and who isn't?), having accounts at several skins is a must.

The extra skins also provide you with a way to get around most sites limit of four tables open at once, because you can log into each server simultaneously and sit at three-four tables at each.

You are not allowed, however, to sit in two different seats at the same table. For example, if you log in to Party and sit at table Fantasy Football, you will not be able to sit in an empty seat at Fantasy Football with your Empire screen name also. The server notices your IP addresses are the same and blocks you from sitting. (You also cannot sit at the same table as someone using the same internet router as you, because your IP addresses will be the same.

Are the skins always exactly the same?

Not exactly. Each server has its own selection of multi-table tournaments and many have different specials and bonuses.

There are many other SKIN Poker sites. I just used Prima for this example. Absolute Poker has a skin (Goal Poker). Titan Poker has a skin (Poker Ocean) and many more set up their games to create lower overhead and better central banking.

About the Author

The Shark Forum and Shark Poker Tour site house 20,000 members worldwide. "Shark" hosts Freeroll Poker Tourneys and deep stack low buyins all with huge money added.