iPoker network history
iPoker is the online poker network of Playtech, a gambling software company founded in 1999 and headquartered in Douglas, Isle of Man. It works on a skin model: each room has its own brand and cashier, but the players sit at the same tables.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Sep 2004 | Playtech launches iPoker. |
| Mar 2006 | Playtech lists on London's AIM market (later the main market and the FTSE 250). |
| 2007 | iPoker takes over the Tribeca Tables Europe rooms and briefly becomes the second-largest online poker network after PokerStars. |
| 2012 | The network splits liquidity into two tiers, with exclusive tables for its strongest operators. |
| May 2013 | iPoker bars the account aggregator Muchos Poker from referring players. |
| Jul 2013 | Playtech buys PokerStrategy.com, a poker training community with almost 7 million members, for $49.2 million. |
| Apr 2014 | 30 active skins; iPoker ranks tenth among online poker networks worldwide. |
| 1 Feb 2015 | A Share of Betting Revenue model weights each operator's share by where deposits come from rather than by rake. |
| 11 Aug 2015 | The two tiers merge back into a single player pool. |
| Oct 2015 | The new client beta starts. |
| 2025 | About twenty active skins, including bet365, Betfair Poker, William Hill, Betsson, Betsafe, Paddy Power, RedStar and Svenska Spel. |
Why the skin model matters
A single room rarely has enough players to fill tables at every stake around the clock. By pooling players from dozens of branded rooms, a network keeps games running, while each operator keeps its own customers, bonuses and payments. The 2012 split and the 2015 re-merge were both attempts to balance those two interests.