We believe Americas Cardroom to be one of the best poker rooms available to US residents, despite having lower traffic than their competitors. Their poker room has roughly 3,000 players at any given time, and the majority of those players are in the cash game section playing hold’em or omaha. For the vast majority of casual players, they wont notice the difference which is why we recommend them. Players looking to play MTTs or Sit N Go’s on a regular basis should do more research on who runs the most games.
We love Americas Cardroom because of the fact that they accept US players, their tournaments have good value and their $1,000 deposit bonus has no expiration date. So, is Americas Cardroom worth signing up to? I think that will depend on what you’re looking for in a poker site. So take a look at my notes below and see what you think.
Promotions at ACR
There are a number of ongoing promotions at ACR and they make Americas Cardroom a mainstay for US poker players.
$1,000 Deposit Bonus
One ongoing promotion worth taking advantage of is the 100% deposit bonus up to $1000. What that means for you is that for every dollar that you deposit, Americas Cardroom will match you one dollar, up to a maximum of $1000.
Bonuses are earned by playing real money games at the rate of one dollar for every 55 RP’s. That’s the equivalent to $10 rake. It’s important to note that the deposit bonus expires in 40 days. So my opinion is that you should save up and deposit the maximum since you can complete it quickly.
First-time depositors will also gain entry into a weekly $250 new depositor freeroll.
Bad Beat Jackpot
Americas Cardroom also has a bad beat jackpot. To qualify for the bad beat jackpot a player must have quad eights or better beaten.
The bad beat jackpot pays out 30% to the loser of the hand, 20% to the winner, 10% to the rest of the players at the table who qualify, 30% to the next jackpot and the remaining 10% the house.
Americas Cardroom VIP Program
The Elite Benefit Program is the name of the VIP rewards program at Americas Cardroom. It’s a military themed VIP program that uses ranks for the different VIP tiers.
Players move up in rank by earning combat points which are earned whenever you play a real money hand or tournament. The six different tiers starting from the bottom include Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel, General and Five-Star General.
As you move up in tiers you will earn things such as combat point multipliers, access to the store, access to cash in the store, live packages, annual status and freerolls. Annual status is reserved for the General and Five-Star General, as well as the major cash prizes.
Guaranteed Tournaments
Americas Cardroom runs 10 guaranteed tournaments every week. The guarantees range from 1k to 50k, and some tournaments run daily while others will run on a weekly basis. If you can’t afford to buy into the tournament there are also a number of freerolls and satellite tournaments that you can enter instead.
The Games Available at ACR
Here are some details about the games offered at ACR.
Cash Games
Americas Cardroom has Texas Hold’em, omaha, Stud, three card poker and 32 card draw.
Of those games the most popular is clearly Hold’em. When I play there, I always notice several Pot Limit Omaha tables open but not many tables that had any players seated. Note: I checked again later on and there were a few omaha games running, but they only run on Americas Cardroom during peak hours.
The stakes for all cash games range from $.05/$.10 to 30/50 and most of the games running were at 100nl and 400nl.
Tournaments
The tournaments at Americas Cardroom are a mixed bag. On one hand you have 10 guaranteed tournament scheduled each week, some of which run daily. Many of these tournaments have an overlay too, so there’s extra value in playing.
On the other hand, these are pretty much the only tournaments that run. After making sure my filter was completely reset and I had all the buttons selected, I found only 12 tournaments total — half running and the other half open for late registration.
Sit n Go’s
Sit n Go’s at Americas Cardroom have historically been low on traffic, but the poker room is actively trying to increase the traffic there and games that do run are pretty soft. The last time I checked there were only 10 players registered out of what could have been 50 or 100 announced tournaments. And only 20 sit and go’s were running. I attribute this to their lack of overall traffic and as Americas Cardroom increases in popularity their SNG section will undoubtedly increase as well.
Americas Cardroom Software
Regarding the software, I look at the lobby, table and whether or not the room allows players to use 3rd party programs. My findings are below.
Lobby
I thought the lobby was simple to use. There are multiple filters and buttons at the top so that you can quickly filter out the games that you want to play. For the menu itself, you can see how many players are seated, the average pot size, hands per hour and the number of players to the flop. All standard stuff.
The one thing that I’m not a fan of is that the tournament section opens up in a new browser window – a little annoying, but not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
You also have access to the casino and sports book from within the lobby if you like those sorts of things.
Table
My previous experience with Americas Cardroom wasn’t that great when it came to opening up the tables. They didn’t load right away, and when they did, it took a long time. However, this time around the table opened up quickly and without any lag.
One thing you’ll notice with ACR is that there are no fancy features – just the standard things like auto post, muck and the ability to take notes, stack, tile or manually resize your tables. Something that did stand out were the options to chop and straddle. I can’t think of another room that had those options.
You do have the option to change the way your table looks. However, the table backgrounds all look the same, and the other graphics are hideous. The sound is horrible too. It reminds me of a bad video game but luckily I don’t like playing with sound so I always turn it off regardless of which poker room I play at.
All in all, the software is standard. If anything, it worked better than the last time I used it, so that’s a plus.
3rd Party Software
So long as Holdem Manager and Poker Tracker 3 are updated and compatible, Americas Cardroom has no problem with you using them. Kind of ironic since most games won’t have the volume where you’ll need a HUD anyway, but it’s good to know just in case.
Support
Americas Cardroom support is available 24/7 using the form on their site, using toll-free number or live chat. I highly recommend that you use the live chat feature. In my experience it’s the fastest and most convenient way to have your problems resolved. For the purpose of the review I used the live chat feature several times and only had to wait a couple of minutes for help. The operators were friendly, helpful and knowledgeable.
Banking Options at Americas Cardroom
The banking options available at Americas Cardroom will depend on where you live. Options for US poker players include Visa, Western Union, Money Gram, and prepaid credit/debit card methods
If you live outside the USA, then it might be possible for you to use the same method for withdrawing your money as you did to make your deposit. For Americans, however, the only options that you have are to request a check or to get a cashout via debit card. Players will receive one check per month free, and every check after that will have a $65 fee. The debit card, on the other hand, is America’s Cardroom best kept secret. Receive cashouts weekly up to $1000 and receive your cash in a matter of days. To get it, just head to the nearest ATM and withdraw like its from your checking account.
All in all, we actually really like Americas Cardroom despite the low tournament traffic and basic software. Given their history, they appear to be safe and when combined with accepting US players, it’s hard to find too much fault with them. Americas Cardroom is the perfect place for cash game players and is an up and coming poker room for tournaments.