South African Poker Sites

You are in for a fun time if you live in South Africa and you have a passion for playing poker, but as you will always be much better off choosing a poker site that suits your needs and requirements perfectly, I have put together the following guide to help you make sense of them all!Keep in mind though that there are lots of different features and benefits that will be coming your way, and the savviest of poker players are always going to make a beeline to play at the poker sites that have everything they are looking for.That does of course include things such as the best poker promotional offers, the exact types of poker games you are looking to play, and you will of course have no end of poker tournaments on offer to you too.So long before you simply do a quick Google search for a poker site that does accept South African players, please do read on as by doing so you will get an insight into just what you should be looking for when you do go on hunt for the best South African at which to play at!

South Africa is actually officially titled the Republic of South Africa. The country is located at the very southernmost tip of the continent Africa. Africa is bordered by Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland; and Lesotho which is actually entirely surrounded by South Africa. There are 11 officially recognized languages spoken in South Africa; Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu (listed alphabetically). The official currency used in Africa is the South African rand.

South African Dollar Poker Sites

There aren’t any poker sites available online that offer play with the South African Rand just yet; however, there are still plenty of poker rooms that offer play to players from Africa.

South African Poker Tax

South Africa does expect its citizens to pay tax on gambling winnings which in most people’s eyes would include online poker; however, with online poker being illegal in the first place, figuring this tax is probably best left to a lawyer or tax advisor.

Is poker legal in South Africa?

Poker is indeed illegal in South Africa; in fact, the following statement was made by the Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies.” If you’re a South African and you participate in online gambling and you win, your winnings are the proceeds of an illegal activity,” That’s not to say that there aren’t still South African’s playing real money poker online; Ronit Chamani of South Africa made the Hendon Mob database’s South African all-time money list last June when she cashed for over $100,000.00 as the only South African woman playing in last year’s World Series of Poker.

Well Known South African Poker Players

There are almost 350 people on the South American all-time money list, including these top ten money makers:

• Raymond Rahme
• Darren Kramer
• Jarred Solomon
• Ryan Dreyer
• Warren Zackey
• Greg Ronaldson
• Kosta Mamaliadis
• Andrea Cornelli
• Chris Convery
• Peter Vermaas

South African Deposit and Withdrawal Options

The following deposit and withdrawal options are viable options for residents of South America that want to make a deposit to a real money poker account online.

Credit Cards

Some companies may not process online gambling transactions, and some players may prefer not to have gambling transactions posted to their regular credit card statements. However, despite those issues, when credit cards work and players have no troubles using them, they’re probably the most convenient and cost effective way to make deposits to online gambling accounts.

Prepaid Credit Cards

For those players that don’t want gambling transactions showing up on their credit card statements, or players that just don’t happen to have bank credit cards, prepaid cards are the next best option. Keep in mind though that prepaid card companies charge fees for any number of things from putting your pin number in to the debit machine at the store, to checking your balance at an ATM or even in some cases for talking to a customer service representative.

Online eWallet’s

Companies like NETeller and Skrill keep players money in an account online, or act as a bridge between the player’s bank account and the online gambling company.

• NETeller
• PayPal
• Instant Banking by Citadel
• EcoCard

Prepaid Options

There are several prepaid options available to players in South Africa including both prepaid cards and prepaid vouchers. Users simply purchase these tools, and then use them to fund their online poker accounts.

• uKash
• PaySafeCard
• Ticket Premium

Poker Sites Licensed in South Africa

There aren’t currently any poker sites licensed in South Africa; however there have been talks of creating and regulating state run gambling sites online.

Qualities of South Africa Licensed Poker Sites

There will of course be many standout qualities associated with you playing at licensed and regulated South Africa poker sites, but do keep in mind that you are likely to find a lot of poker sites that are not licensed anywhere!The internet is awash with stories of poker players that have had the misfortune of playing at poker sites that are not holders of any type of gambling licence and as such are not regulated either, and those stories include poker players that have had their funds stolen by such sites!In fact, there are never any guarantees that the poker games that you will be playing at unlicensed poker sites are going to be fair, so you do run the very real risk of playing games that you have no chance of ever winning if you do not carefully pick out the poker sites you do sign up to and play at!With that in mind do ensure that above all else, when you are looking for a poker site at which to play at in South Africa the only ones you ever do set about playing at are holders of a full and valid gambling license or you may just run into all manner of problems if not!

Many Different South African Poker Games

By you choosing to play poker online in South Africa you are of course going to come across plenty of poker game variants, and one of the very first thing you should set about doing, if you are new to playing poker in general, is to find a variant that appeals to you.However, you will then need to ensure that game is going to be readily available at the poker sites that you end up playing at, and that it is available in both cash ring game and poker tournament fashion too.To be perfectly honest though I do not think you are going to go far wrong by opting to learn to play and master Texas Hold’em Poker, for every single poker site are going to have an abundance of live tables on offer at their respective sites that offer that particular variant.There are however some variants that South African poker players do enjoy playing and one of them is Omaha high low, and the reason why that game does get a lot of attention from players, is that there are two pots that can be won per game.As such you do get a much better chance of winning one of those two pots if you make it right through to the end of each game that being at the showdown stage of the game.

Online South African Poker Tournaments

Now as far as online poker tournament goes, you will have the pick of literally thousands of them each and every single day of the week if you do play online anywhere from South Africa, and with that fact at the forefront of your mind you should set about entering the ones that you are best suited to playing.If you want t play low risk poker tournament online, then the many sit n go poker tournaments will be right up your street, for they will start once the required number of players have registered to enter them and they are appealing as they only have placed for a very small number of entrants too.Head to head poker tournaments are also available at many poker sites, however obviously with there being just you and one other player taking part in them the pots do not grow to massive amounts, until the entry fees are massive themselves!The multi-table poker tournament are the most utilized ones online and with very reasonable entry fees and often some huge prize funds you could certainly win big if you do enter one of those tournaments and then go on to win it!

Deposit and Withdrawal Options

The very first thing I would urge you to do is to make sure that any poker sites or poker apps that you do fancy playing at are going to allow you, at the point of registering as a new player at those sites, is to set your account to operate in South African Rand.That way by doing so every single time you want to cash out your winnings or even make an additional deposit you are not going to have to then convert your home currency into any other, which can of course be quite an expensive thing to do!Then once you have found such a site you then need to ensure that the banking and payment option you use to top up your account and also withdraw winning from your poker site account are not going to force you to pay more fees for using their services.There are, you will be very pleased to hear dozens of different poker site payment option available, and as such you are never going to find it very difficult what so ever finding a poker site that you can sign up to and then use a payment option that suits you down to the ground, with the minimum of fees and charges associated with using them.

Most Valuable Rand Poker Site Bonuses

To allow you to get more play time from your bankroll, no matter how small or large that bankroll is, what you should be looking to do is to sign up to and play at a poker site that offers you a huge number of different poker bonuses.I doubt it is going to prove very difficult for you to find a poker site at which you can sign up and then immediately claim some form of sign up bonus, and to be fair to many poker sites some of their sign up bonuses are high valued ones.No deposit poker bonuses could be the only enticement you require to sign up to some poker sites, but keep in mind they can be poker bonuses that come with lots of terms and conditions attached to thee,.With that in mind and for the maximum poker playing value opt to claim deposit match bonuses instead but only those that offer the very lowest of play through requirements and those that do not have any limits attached to them regarding how much you can win and cash out when using those bonus credits too!

Popular Online Poker Playing Strategy

There is no one single poker strategy that players tend to always use when playing poker online, other than knowing just how to play off each hand they have been dealt out based on its value, so do keep that in mind when you are learning to play.The art of playing poker strategically is initially finding a poker game that you have learnt to play as well as humanly possible, but also then knowing where to play those games and when.If you are just learning the basics of playing poker then I would urge you to read as many different poker books as you can do and watch as many related videos as you can do also.Once you do feel you have a very good grasp of playing poker in the very best way possible then spend some time playing online at one of the free poker tables all poker sites have on offer, as that way you are going to gain some very valuable playing experience, but in a way that isn’t going to force you to pay anything whilst you are learning to play a much better game!

South African Playing Environments

You will find some poker venues are available to you if you live in South African, but to be perfectly honest most players now prefer playing from the comfort of their own homes, and there are lots of extra benefits of them choosing to do just that.For a start when playing poker online from home you have the ability of choosing when you want to play and not when for example a land based poker room is open, and you do also get to pick and choose whether to play poker cash ring games r poker tournaments too.As you also have many more poker game variants on offer to you when playing online, you can then also pick and choose the game you do fancy playing more than any other, without having to made do with playing the games a land based poker site is offering.There is another very convenient way that you can also play poker and that is by you simply downloading a poker app onto your smart phone or tablet device, and for reference there will be Just as many poker games and ponder tournaments on offer at a mobile poker sites as there will be at an online poker site that caters for South African poker players!

Frequently Asked Questions

As you have just found out, if you do make something of a concerted effort in regards to finding an online poker site that suits your needs and requirements if you are based in South Africa, you will never go wrong! Below are some frequently asked questions and their respective answers you may find of interest!