RedStar Poker Review

During our time reviewing online casinos and gambling games of all kinds, it’s safe to say we have seen plenty of different types of themes that developers and site owners use in order to stand out from the crowd. Sometimes, though, you just don’t need to go to that much trouble- –just give us, the loyal players, what we want. Please.

RedStar Poker is definitely listening to that argument with all ears, and responding with open arms. As the name suggests, this is a place where you come if you want to play online poker, and really that’s (almost) all there is to it. We’ll come to the other minor bits later, but for now let’s stick with the task at hand.

Once the homepage loads more experienced players may notice a couple of differences between RedStar Poker and other gambling websites. For one thing, there’s no garish imagery here, no massive cityscape or lunatic cartoon characters or even beautiful girls. It’s just red. And that’s about it.

Secondly, while most are quick to point out free money just for joining, that’s not the case here. The central slider image was stuck on information about the RedStar Lottery, which we’ll come to later, and not obsessed with trying to get you to sign up on the promise of matching your first bet or similar. That might sound like bad marketing, but we think it’s actually kind of shrewd given all the offers and promotions are certainly welcome, but they kind of blur into one.

You can manually change that slider and it will, after a couple of clicks, reveal that you can get a 200% bonus on your first deposit up to $2000, but we actually prefer the lottery bit- not only is it a change, it’s also telling of the fact that there is actually a bit more going on under the proverbial hood than simply just poker, not that we’d be complaining about a website that only did poker, but did poker well.

Poker, Then

Well, maybe. If you can find where the games actually are. On the homepage you’ll see a load of menu options with icons- ‘Download’, ‘Cashier’, ‘How To Play’, ‘Store’, ‘Promotions’, ‘Tournaments’, and ‘Support’. Whoever designed the site was obviously forgetting the number one rule of anything online in this day and age – people need some clear signposting or they lose interest.

You can download the actual play area onto your desktop and this is how you come to be able to start playing poker. For some people this is going to be an immediate concern – given the prevalence of dodgy downloads, spyware, viruses and so forth, having to download just to play a few hands isn’t ideal. Especially when the domain address ends .ru, meaning the site is based in Russia, a country that shot to the top of the notoriety table in terms of online worries after the election of President Trump in 2016, and the mudslinging that preceded that, with many experts warning Hillary Clinton’s demise in ratings was down to Russian hackers leaking her dodgy dealings.

Forget Russia

Fair point, there’s nothing to say this website is at all a cause for concern, so let’s move on. If you do decide to download there are several varieties of poker available to play. These include classics like Texas Hold’em, Omaha, and Omaha High/Low, alongside the less common Telesina. On the whole then, a very good offering of poker.

But I Can’t Play Anything Online?

No, that’s not entirely true. Contrary to what the name suggests, RedStar Poker does allow you to play other games, although confusingly these are held in a completely different domain.

Click on the Casino Games option on the homepage and you’ll be confronted by a raft of thumbnails showcasing the many different types of games on offer- these include slots. Strangely, though, if you look into the URL bar in your browser, the website will actually have changed address, and should now read Red Star Slots.eu. This doesn’t really matter much, but does mean that we’re now technically reviewing a completely different website.

Anyway, this is still dominated by poker, so don’t expect to find a load of Baccarat tables waiting for you, but it does mean that you can get involved without having to bite the bullet and download the Red Star Poker app for your computer, which will be a relief to many, although perhaps not enough to make them choose this over, say, any website out there that allows full casino access with no download requirement.

Any Tournaments or Promotions?

In a word, yes, and plenty of them, so that’s one thing at least. The promotions are basically the standard fare offered by the Red Star franchise – there’s an ongoing lottery – hence it being advertised on the homepage- which is open to all members and basically means you can win some decent prizes.

You’ll also get a handy deposit bonus, of up to 100% of the first deposit, up to a monetary value of $100. The sharp witted out there may spot that this is not the same offer as the homepage claims, which may also ring a few alarm bells. More than likely it’s an oversight, but in a super competitive industry like online gambling, this can make the difference between new members and a sky high bounce rate for the website.

There’s also, even more confusingly, the offer of Casino Freerolls, but this actually applies not to RedStar Poker, but to Red Star Casino – a sister site. This is where the whole model of RedStar begins to fall apart. There really does need to be far more clarity in the information provided in order to make sure people feel safe and secure.

Red-dy for Some Home Truths?

We relished in the thought of a dedicated online poker website, but sadly this really does come up pretty short in the grand scheme. Yes, the poker is great, but it’s asking far too much for not a lot of detail on what you’re actually getting for your money.

Let’s put it as simply as we can – people are actually going to put their credit card and personal details into this website. In order to do that they don’t want to feel as though parts of the site redirect them to other sites without actually making this clear, and also confirming that other site is definitely a legitimate partner or affiliate, or even a sister site.

Secondly, they don’t necessarily want to have to download apps in order to play – there are plenty of other websites that don’t require this. And, finally, the promotions themselves don’t always match up to those advertised on the home page.

We are definitely not accusing this website of anything remotely illegal or even dishonest, and like we already said, once you’re playing the poker is top notch. However, this isn’t enough to make up for all the oversights.

The frustrating thing is, all that it would take to correct this is just a skim over the information provided with a keen eye, and all sins could easily be erased. As things stand, though, we can’t honestly say we recommend this site because it’s just so confusing and difficult to work out. Put simply, then, there are other standalone poker sites that kick this one to touch.