These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and the operator of PokerBest (“PokerBest”, “we”, “us” or “our”). They govern your use of pokerbest.com, the PokerBest poker room, the cashier, the partner site at affiliate.pokerbest.com and every related service (together, the “Service”). Please read them carefully. By creating an account, ticking the box at sign-up, or using the Service in any way, you accept these Terms, our Privacy Policy and the game rules shown in the poker room. If you do not accept them, you must not use the Service.
1. Who can play
To open and use an account, you confirm and promise that:
- you are at least 18 years old, or the minimum legal age for gambling where you are, if that is higher;
- online poker for real money is lawful in the place where you live and in the place where you are when you play, and you are solely responsible for checking this;
- you are acting for yourself and not on behalf of anyone else;
- you are not excluded from gambling, whether by us, by a self exclusion you asked for, or by any authority;
- you are not an employee, director or contractor of PokerBest, or a member of their household; and
- the money you use is your own and does not come from any unlawful activity.
We may refuse to open an account, or restrict or close one, for any person or from any country or region, at our sole discretion and without giving a reason. You must not use a VPN, proxy or any other tool to hide your location or to get around a restriction.
2. Your account
One account per person
You may hold only one PokerBest account, however you sign in (email and password, Google or Telegram). If we find more than one account linked to you, we may close the extra accounts, combine them, and void any winnings, rewards or referral earnings obtained through them.
Accurate details
The details you give us must be true, complete and kept up to date. Your username is chosen once and cannot be changed. It must not be offensive, misleading, or suggest that you work for PokerBest.
Keeping your account safe
You are responsible for everything done through your account. Keep your password and your Google or Telegram login secret. You must not share, sell, transfer or lend your account, or let anyone else play on it. Tell us at once at support@pokerbest.com if you think someone else has used it. We are not responsible for losses caused by someone using your login details, unless the loss was caused by our own negligence.
Closing your account
You may ask us to close your account at any time through live chat or by email. After our standard checks, we will pay out any remaining balance to you, less any amount you owe us. You cannot close an account to avoid an investigation, a verification request or a debt.
Inactive accounts
If you do not sign in for 12 months in a row, we may close your account after telling you by email. Any balance remains yours, and you can ask us to pay it out, subject to verification.
3. Your balance
Your balance is held and shown in United States dollars. It is a record of money you can use on the Service. It is not a bank account, no interest is paid on it, and it is not protected by any deposit guarantee scheme. When you sit at a table, your buy in moves from your balance to the table, and whatever you have in front of you returns to your balance when you leave.
If money is credited to your account by mistake, whether through a system error, a human error or a payment that was later reversed, it is not yours. You must tell us, you must not use it, and we may remove it from your account at any time. If you have already used or withdrawn it, you must repay it on request, and we may recover it from your balance or from future deposits.
4. Deposits
- Deposits are made in the Cashier using the payment methods shown there. Available methods, minimums and maximums can change at any time, and a method may not be available to every player.
- Some methods ask you to send money to payment details that the Cashier shows you. Only use the details shown for that deposit. Details can change from one deposit to the next. We are not responsible for money sent to old, wrong or copied details, or to anyone who is not PokerBest.
- Every payment must come from an account, card or wallet held in your own name. We may refuse a payment from anyone else and return it, less any costs, to where it came from.
- A deposit is credited once we have confirmed that we received it. Fees charged by your bank or payment provider are your responsibility.
- Deposits are for playing on the Service. We may decline to pay out deposited money that has not been used for play and may instead return it to the method it came from.
- If a deposit is reversed, charged back, recalled or cancelled after it was credited, we may deduct the amount from your balance, recover any shortfall from you, void any play or rewards funded by it, and suspend or close your account.
5. Withdrawals
- You can ask for a withdrawal in the Cashier using the methods and minimums shown there. We pay only to an account or wallet in your own name, and we may pay using a different method from the one you chose.
- Before paying, we may carry out security, identity and anti fraud checks, especially for larger withdrawals, first withdrawals, or withdrawals to new payment details. We may hold a withdrawal until those checks are complete.
- You are responsible for the payment details and crypto address you give us, including the network. Crypto transfers cannot be reversed, and we are not responsible for funds sent to details you entered wrongly.
- We aim to process withdrawals promptly, but we do not guarantee a payout time. Delays by banks, payment providers or blockchain networks are outside our control.
- We may cancel a withdrawal and return the money to your balance if these Terms have been broken.
6. Rake and fees
We charge rake on cash game pots and an entry fee on tournaments and other paid games, as shown in the poker room for each game. Rake and fees are earned by us when charged and are not refundable, except where a game is cancelled or voided under these Terms.
7. The games
Game rules
The games run on poker software licensed from a third party. The rules of each game, including hand rankings, betting rules, time banks, rake, tournament structures and prize pools, are shown in the poker room and form part of these Terms. Cards are dealt by a random number generator. Where the game rules and these Terms conflict, these Terms apply.
Connection problems
You are responsible for your own device and internet connection. If you disconnect during a hand, the software may check, fold or use your time bank for you. Hands, pots and tournament places are not replayed, changed or refunded because of a problem with your connection or your device.
Malfunctions and cancellations
A malfunction of the software or our systems voids all play and payouts it affects. If a hand, a game or a tournament is cancelled or voided, we will settle it as the game rules say or, where they say nothing, as we reasonably decide, for example by returning buy ins or dividing a prize pool fairly. Our records of every hand, bet and transaction are final unless they are shown to be wrong.
Jackpots and special games
Jackpots, Spins and any other special game follow the rules shown for them in the poker room. We may change, pause or end them at any time.
8. Fair play
Every player must play fairly and for themselves. In particular, you must not:
- collude or share information with other players, including sharing hole cards or playing in a team against others;
- deliberately lose chips to another player (chip dumping) or move money between accounts through play;
- use bots, scripts, solvers, real time assistance tools or any software that plays for you or advises you while you play;
- let someone else play for you, or play on someone else’s account (ghosting or account sharing);
- hold or use more than one account, or play at the same table as another account you control;
- exploit a bug, error or weakness in the Service, instead of reporting it to us;
- use the chat to abuse, threaten, harass or advertise, or to break the law;
- use the Service to launder money or for any other unlawful purpose.
We monitor play to protect the games. We may review any account, hand or transaction at any time, and you must cooperate with any investigation.
9. What we may do if these Terms are broken
If we reasonably suspect that you have broken these Terms, that your account is being used for fraud or any unlawful purpose, or that a law or regulator requires it, we may, without notice and in addition to any other right we have:
- suspend your account, or block deposits, withdrawals, play or chat;
- void hands, games, winnings, rewards and referral earnings affected by the breach;
- withhold and keep money won through the breach, and use it to compensate players we believe were harmed;
- recover from your balance any loss or cost the breach caused us;
- close your account and any linked accounts; and
- report the matter to the police, payment providers, regulators or other authorities.
Where we close an account for a breach, we will pay out any remaining balance that was not affected by the breach, after our checks and after deducting any amount you owe us, unless the law requires us to withhold it.
10. Rewards, rakeback and promotions
- Rewards, rakeback, VIP ranks, Refer & Earn and promotions are offered at our discretion. Their rules are shown in your account and on the relevant pages. We may change, suspend or end any of them at any time, for the future.
- Rakeback is earned only once your email address is verified and a phone number is added to your account. The share you earn depends on your VIP rank and on the rules in force on the day it is earned.
- Figures shown before a reward is credited are estimates. A reward becomes part of your balance only when it is credited. Unclaimed rewards have no cash value.
- Rewards are for genuine play by one person on one account. We may check any reward claim, and we may refuse, reduce or reverse a reward earned through a breach of these Terms, through more than one account, or through play designed mainly to earn rewards rather than to play the game.
11. Refer & Earn
When a friend signs up through your personal invite link, you may earn a share of the rake your friend pays, as shown on the Refer & Earn page. You must not refer yourself or any account you control, create accounts for others, or send unsolicited messages (spam) to promote your link. A referral is linked when the friend registers and cannot be moved later. Earnings obtained in breach of these Terms may be voided.
12. Clubs
Clubs are private groups of tables run by hosts we have approved. Every club game is played on the Service, under these Terms and the game rules, and from each player’s own PokerBest balance.
- Hosts are independent. They do not act for PokerBest, cannot see your cards, and never hold your money. Never send money to a host or to anyone else to play in a club. We are not responsible for any payment you make outside the Service.
- Table passwords and invite links are for club members only. A host may remove a member from their club.
- We may close any club, table or membership at any time.
13. Partners
If you join the PokerBest partner program, these Terms apply to you as a partner too, together with the commercial terms we agree with you when your application is approved. As a partner you must not refer yourself or accounts you control, promote PokerBest to anyone under 18 or anywhere online gambling is unlawful, send spam, bid on or imitate our brand, or make false or misleading claims about the Service. Commission is earned only on genuine players and in line with your agreed terms. We may withhold, adjust or cancel commission linked to fraud, abuse or a breach, and we may end any partnership at any time.
14. Verification and anti money laundering
We must know who our players are. At any time, and in particular before a withdrawal, we may ask you to prove your identity, age, address and the source of your funds, for example with a photo ID, a selfie, a proof of address or bank statements. We may also run checks through third party services. Until we are satisfied, we may suspend your account or hold withdrawals. If you do not provide what we ask for, or we cannot verify you, we may close your account and deal with your balance as the law allows. We may report suspicious activity to the authorities and are not allowed to tell you when we do.
15. Responsible gambling
Poker should stay fun. Our support team can set a deposit limit, a cool off or a self exclusion on your account at your request, as explained on our Responsible Gambling page. A limit starts when we set it; a request to raise it applies only after a cooling off period. While a self exclusion is in place you must not open or use another account. We may also limit or close an account ourselves if we believe gambling is causing harm. We are not liable for any loss you suffer if you break a self exclusion or give us false information.
16. Communications
You agree that we may send you notices about your account and these Terms by email, by notification in the Service or by message in live chat. Marketing messages by email, SMS or push notification are sent only where you have agreed, and you can turn them off at any time under Preferences in your account.
17. Using the Service
We grant you a personal, limited, non transferable licence to use the Service for your own entertainment. All content, software, names, logos and designs on the Service belong to us or our licensors. You must not copy, reverse engineer, scrape, resell or interfere with the Service, collect data about other players, or attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of it.
18. Availability and changes to the Service
We provide the Service “as is” and “as available”. We do not promise that it will always be available, uninterrupted or free of errors. We may carry out maintenance, and we may change, suspend or withdraw any game, feature, payment method or part of the Service at any time.
19. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows:
- we are not liable for any indirect or consequential loss, or for any loss of profit, winnings, data, opportunity or goodwill;
- we are not liable for losses caused by your device, your connection, third party software or payment providers, or events outside our reasonable control, including outages, attacks, and actions of authorities;
- our total liability to you for all claims connected with the Service is limited to the funds in your account at the time the event giving rise to the claim occurred.
Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, such as liability for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.
20. Your responsibility to us
You agree to compensate us, our staff and our partners for any claim, loss, penalty or cost (including reasonable legal fees) that arises from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Service, or your breach of any law or of anyone else’s rights.
21. Taxes
You are solely responsible for reporting and paying any taxes that apply to your winnings or other amounts you receive from the Service.
22. Complaints and disputes
If you have a complaint, contact us through live chat or at support@pokerbest.com within 30 days of the event, with your username, the date and time, and what happened. We will investigate and reply in writing, normally within 14 days. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may ask for it to be reviewed by a senior member of our team. Please do not post details of a dispute in public or in chat while we are looking into it.
23. Changes to these Terms
We may change these Terms at any time, for example to reflect changes to the Service, the law or our business. The updated Terms apply from the date shown at the top of this page. Where a change is significant, we will tell you in the Service or by email, and we may ask you to accept the new Terms before you continue. If you keep using the Service after a change, you accept it. If you do not agree, stop using the Service and ask us to close your account.
24. Governing law
These Terms, and any dispute or claim arising from them or from your use of the Service, are governed by the laws of Curaçao. The courts of Curaçao have exclusive jurisdiction, except that we may bring proceedings in the courts of the country where you live.
25. General
- These Terms, the Privacy Policy and the game rules are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service.
- If any part of these Terms is found invalid, the rest stays in force.
- If we do not enforce a right straight away, we have not given it up and may still enforce it later.
- You may not transfer your rights or duties under these Terms. We may transfer ours to another company, for example as part of a sale or restructuring of our business.
- We are not responsible for any failure or delay caused by events outside our reasonable control.
- These Terms are written in English. If they are translated, the English version applies.
- Any part of these Terms that by its nature should continue after your account is closed, such as the sections on money owed, liability and disputes, continues to apply.
26. Contact us
Questions about these Terms? Contact us through live chat or email support@pokerbest.com, and a person will answer.