Sky Poker Migrates to iPoker Network

Fan favourite Sky Poker has announced it will cease operation as an independent site, migrating over to the iPoker network at the end of May 2025.

The Flutter-owned platform was mooted as a potential tie-in with sister site PokerStars, but instead, rather randomly in the thoughts of many, Sky Poker will be heading over to Playtech’s iPoker network.

From there it will join another two of Flutter’s platforms — Betfair Poker and Paddy Power.

The End of an Iconic Era

A SKY statement read:

“At the end of May, Sky Poker will be joining the iPoker network to enhance your gaming experience and we’ll be bringing you bigger prizes, better promotions and more varied games.

“Don’t worry, we will continue to run a selection of Sky exclusive games and promotions we know you love.”

The Sky Poker platform had a bit of a cult following since its inception in 2007. The Sky broadcasting network used to feature many poker shows on a nightly basis, and at one point even its own poker channel.

Flutter announced that the move is down to iPoker having superior software and tools which will allow them to run a larger variety of promotions .

Players will not need to make new accounts, the only change of note being that the iPoker network denominates its games in euros. That said, Sky-exclusive games will run in pounds sterling.

On the Backburner

Sky Poker owner Flutter acquired the company back in 2018 and it didn’t take many months before a migration to PokerStars was mentioned publicly.

But businesses of that size can flit around with various projects of varying priorities, and so the idea was shuffled onto the backburner.

This was surprising because one of the most obvious reasons for a migration was cost savings which would easily be achieved by tieing into the PokerStars software.

2019 saw the merger of Paddy Power-Betfair and The Stars Group, which is what became Flutter, a true behemoth in the gambling world. A market value of $10 billion and $4 billion in yearly revenue gave the company new priorities.

Sky Poker remained well-supported, even after a move to browser-based play following the retirement of the archaic Adobe Air software.

The Sky Poker led UK Online Poker Series also remained popular after moving online during the Covid-19 pandemic.

So why move Sky Poker to the iPoker network? The only reason that makes sense is that Flutter has taken note of the falling fortunes of the Pokerstars product.

Once holding around 70% market share and an average of 8,000 cash players at any one time, PokerStars has seen a fall from grace that many thought impossible.

The rise of sites such as GGPoker saw PokerStars lose its clear number one spot. Now we see only 2,000 cash players playing concurrently and the likes of new site CoinPoker poised to overtake them. In a nutshell, iPoker is no worse off than PokerStars these days.

The network allows its more than 50 different skins to operate with a high degree of independence regarding promotions and the like.

This might have been a little awkward with a move to PokerStars traffic making it tough to maintain the Sky Poker brand. We can now assume that Betfair Poker and Paddy Power will be staying on the iPoker network.

Mark Patrickson

Professional Poker Journalist

Mark Patrickson is a poker journalist with over ten years of experience. He writes for VIP-Grinders.com, sharing his deep knowledge of poker. He creates interesting content about poker strategy, trends, and news for poker fans worldwide. [more]