Sign-up Deals

Betfair is well known to many of us as the biggest betting exchange going. However, they also have a busy poker section. If you sing up you get £20 free, into your account.
Betfair itself is a fairly good poker site (it shares the same back-end with Will Hills and some others), with a decent range of games. A big plus is that regular play on the poker tables can really bring your commission levels down very fast.
To avail of the signup bonus referred to above, use the following code (there is a 'Enter a betfair Refer and Earn code' box when you register)

6KYXQVEM9

Party Poker is the biggest Poker room on the internet.
Lots of fish at the small money tables in my experience.
The interface is easy to use and there are tons of games going - the activity there is the best I've come accross.

There is a 20% signup bonus (up to $100) for going through the above link.

Empire poker is the same poker room as Party - but uses a (slightly) different skin. You'll find the same players, same games etc. The bonus deal on signup is also the same - 20%, up to $100.

In theory I think they may frown upon having accounts with both. When registering, the installer may check to see if you have software for another skin installed. If you do it will ask you to remove it. However, if you register on a machine without the other skin installed (or uninstall and reinstall the first one presumably) then you can happily have both software skins running at the same time. Note however (and this is a good thing!) you can't have two seats at the same table - e.g. you couldn't log in under your empire account and sit at the same table as yourself (under your Party account).

Both sites offer regular re-load bonuses also.

Paradise Poker

Paradise offer a 25% bonus (up to $50) on your signup deposit, so if you can afford it, I recommend signing up for $200 - that way you'll get the max bonus. Follow the instructions on this forum and you should soon win that (and more!) back again.

Note that you can also sign up to Paradise Poker without lodging any money or giving any credit details. Obviously you won't be able (generally, but do read on!) to play for real money, but you can experiment on the "play money tables" and get a feel for both the game rules and the way the site works etc.

Finally, as an exciting bonus we will be running some freeroll competitions. It will be free to enter these and Paradise Poker will stump up some prizes. You won't need to have any money lodged in your account, or even any credit details lodged, to play (see above paragraph), although you will need to have enabled the account for real money. Now, you can't say fairer than that. A free tournament with a chance to win real money!

Bet365 works on a different back end to any of the above. It tends to be a lot busier than betfair, and similar to Paradise, but not as busy as Party/Empire. A good selection of games, and excellent for micro-limits (you can play with bets as low as 1c). Money can be freely transferred between the poker and sports betting. They offer $50 free chips for signing up, and have some great freeroll tournaments.