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How to Play Online Poker with Friends in 2025
Many who have seen the famous scene in the movie "Casino Royale" where James Bond destroys his opponent at the poker table would like to recreate it with friends and experience similar emotions. After the revolution in the field of mobile applications, playing poker online with virtual chips has become a new fashion trend, especially when it comes to private games with friends. Today, to play online poker with friends, you do not necessarily have to use real money. All you need to do is create a private table and invite your friends to find out who of you has the best art of the game.
How to choose the best app for playing poker with friends?
To make online poker convenient and easy, the app must meet a number of criteria:
- Access and client must be completely free.
- Ability to install on both Android and iOS.
- Random number generator (RNG) certified by independent auditors.
- Support for creating cash games and tournaments in Texas Hold'em and Omaha for real money and play chips.
- Flexible settings for each table and tournament.
- Password access.
- Intuitive interface and built-in communication tools (chat, emoji, "throw objects").
How to play poker with friends on PokerStars?
In 2011, PokerStars added the Home Games section, where you can create your own poker club with invitation-only access. You can play from a PC and mobile devices (Android/iOS).
Club administrators can launch tournaments (from $0.11 to $33 or play money) and cash tables for Hold'em and Omaha via the Manage Games section. The following settings are available:
- Table name.
- Discipline (NLH, PLO, PLO5, Stud, Mixed Games, 6+ Short Deck, Badugi, etc.).
- Limits (from $0.01/$0.02 to $0.50/$1, buy-in 40–100bb).
- Number of players.
- Currency and bet type (NL, PL, FL).
To keep things interesting, you can create leaderboards and give out prizes to the best players. The Results tab stores the history of games.
How to create a private PokerStars club?
Any player in the poker room has access to “Home Games”:
- Click “Create a Poker Club”.
- Enter a name.
- Enter an invitation code.
- Confirm the terms (Home Games Terms & Conditions).
If everything is done correctly, a confirmation of the creation of a new club will appear.
Important:
- The club name approval takes up to 5 days (at first, only the number is visible).
- Additional information about the club will be sent to the e-mail that the player specified when registering with PokerStars.
- You can create a maximum of 2 clubs (in the .com version) or 1 (in the .net version), and join a maximum of 10 or 3 clubs, respectively. There are also limits on the number of simultaneous games: up to 5 cash games and 10 tournaments at a time.
We can highlight the following advantages of PokerStars Home Games:
- A wide choice of club, table and tournament settings
- Many poker formats
- You can play for both real and virtual money
- You can create leaderboards
The only significant drawback is the maximum bet size of $0.50/$1.
How to play with friends on 888Poker?
In June 2020, 888Poker launched the Play with Friends mode. This is similar to Home Games, but without clubs: you can simply create a table or tournament with a password.
- Hold'em and Omaha are supported.
- You can play from mobile devices, but you can only create games from a PC.
How to join private games on 888Poker?
- In the top menu, select "Extra Games → Play with Friends".
- Click "Create new game".
- Configure the settings. For cash - limits, table size, speed, buy-in. For a tournament - buy-in, blind structure, prize distribution, start time.
- After that, click the "Create" button.
All already created tables will be displayed in a list at the bottom of this window.
You can invite friends in two ways:
- Send an email directly from the lobby.
- Copy the invitation and forward it via social networks or messengers.
Mobile apps for private games
Although PokerStars was the first to introduce the format of private games with friends, players lacked modern club poker apps with this option. This niche was occupied by PPPoker since 2016, and later by ClubGG. They were originally created to work on gadgets.
Over time, an association of clubs from all over the world was created. Chips in such clubs can be exchanged for real money. At the same time, each user has the opportunity to quickly create a private club, any tables in it and invite friends to the club to play for virtual money.
Club apps have become very popular in those countries and regions where people have a lot of smartphones in their hands, and desktop computers are not very widespread.
Summary
Poker with friends online offers a lot of advantages: a safe atmosphere, training without pressure and the ability to play at any stakes.
Pros:
- A private poker space. You create your own closed poker club.
- You can play with friends without risking money.
- Flexible settings. You can create cash games and tournaments with different features.
- Social interaction. You can chat without restrictions.
- Ease of use and popularity.
- Security and reliability.
Cons:
- The level of the game may not correspond to the public pool.
- It is difficult to play for money against friends.
- Playing poker as entertainment makes it difficult to improve your skill.
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