PartyGammon Review

PartyGammon is much more than just a brand new backgammon site. It is a sign of online backgammon finally breaking through, as it is PartyGaming, the largest only gaming company in the world, that is running the show behind PartyGammon. It is a company that doesn’t put up a site only for fun but to become the market leader in its genre. To understand the status of PartyGaming in the industry, just consider the facts: PartyGaming is enlisted in the London stock market and is currently worth more than 8 billion dollars. Last year it made profit 300 million dollars. No doubt current online backgammon market leaders, Play65 and Gammon Empire, are holding their breath.

The site

Fine, so they’ve got tons of money to throw into PartyGammon. But how does the site live up to the expectations? The first impression of Party Gammon is that it is still in progress. The site graphics come accross as lifeless and unfinished, you have relatively few players in comparison to e.g. Play65 and you have several empty tournament rooms that doesn’t feel too appealing. However, the present status of the site already now gives a very good view of where PartyGammon is aiming at.

PartGammon is clearly lowering the threshold to get started with backgammon in order to attract new players. For example, when it is your turn to move checkers the software shows you where you can move them and when the Crawford rule kicks in you get a message window to announce the Crawford rule. Other sites expect you to know these things and that’s fine for experienced players, but online backgammon beginners certainly give value to such small, but beginner-friendly features.

Both the normal sit’n'go & regular pre-arranged tournaments are present at PartyGammon, which will form the backbone of the site money plays. You can already join low stake sit’n'go tournaments despite the limited number of players on the site.

The game selection also reflects PartyGammon’s fresh thinking. While the competition focuses on backgammon, PartyGammon also offers Hypergammon and Nackgammon - two popular backgammon variants. Hypergammon is a very fast game played only with three checkers per player, Nackgammon in turn is a longer and more strategic backgammon variant. Although Backgammon will probably remain as the most sought-after game, the wider offering of services can’t be neglected by the competition. Their response remains to be seen.

Money, money, money

Every time when PartyGaming has joined a money gaming business it has followed the same simple but powerful strategy to attract players: give away more cash than your competitors can afford. And that’s exactly what PartyGaming is doing now too by announcing the first million dollar tournament, PartyGammon Million.

PartyGammon Million is a backgammon tournament where the total prize money literally is a million bucks - that’s unheard of in backgammon. Play65, currently the biggest online backgammon site, does 50,000 dollar tournaments and even the backgammon world championships don’t come even close to what PartyGammon Million is offering.

In addition to mega-size tournaments, PartyGammon affords to use its financial resources in a way that surely will attract new players: by having a smaller rake than the competitors. Although the rake is not large at the competition, a smaller rake always means that the winning players leave with more money in their pockets than they would at the competitor’s site. And that’s a pretty strong argument to play at PartyGammon.

Conclusion

As we stated already above, PartyGammon is still in the making. But despite its flaws it is already now clear that there is enormous potential in PartyGammon. Its beginner-friendly style and nearly unlimited financial resources will inevitably make PartyGammon grow to become one of the biggest online backgammon sites and whose development will have implications on the whole online backgammon industry. In fact, we here at Winning Backgammon are so convinced of PartyGammon’s possibilities that we dare to predict, that in one year it will be the biggest online backgammon site in the world. You think we are exaggerating? Let’s just wait and see.

Try PartyGammon: PartyGammon