Online Poker Sites Reflect on Last Week’s Cloudflare Outage

Last week’s Cloudflare outage briefly disrupted several poker sites and media outlets. Here’s a short recap of how the incident affected the industry.

banoster - 2025. November 24.

Add RakeRace as a preferred source on Google. Add

Add

The Cloudflare outage on November 18 has now become last week’s headline technical hiccup, but its effects were felt across the online poker world. While the disruption lasted only a few hours, it offered a clear reminder of how dependent poker platforms and media outlets are on global web-infrastructure services.

A Brief But Noticeable Disruption

Cloudflare’s malfunction — later described by the company as an internal system error rather than an attack — caused widespread errors across the internet. A number of high-traffic services unrelated to poker also went offline, and poker operators were not spared either.

WPT Global was among the first rooms where players reported login failures and interrupted gameplay. According to player accounts, tournaments were paused and later cancelled under the operator’s usual procedures. ClubWPT Gold, its sweepstakes-based counterpart, experienced a similar but shorter-lived access issue.

Some sweepstakes platforms, such as Stake US and Clubs Poker, were also mentioned in community reports as temporarily unreachable. However, major real-money rooms like PokerStars, GGPoker, 888poker, and PartyPoker seemed to remain largely unaffected during the Cloudflare window.

Media Outlets Were Hit as Well

Several poker-focused news sites, including PokerNews, Poker Org, PokerListings, and others, briefly went offline during the outage. Many rely on Cloudflare for CDN or security services, so the ripple effect reached poker media just as quickly as operators.

Unrelated Issues Later in the Day

After Cloudflare had already resolved its internal problem, the PokerStars US shared-liquidity network faced a separate interruption, with frozen game states and login problems. The downtime lasted a couple of hours and was followed by previously scheduled maintenance. Based on timing, this second event does not appear to be linked to the Cloudflare failure.

Part of a Larger Pattern

For the poker industry, the incident joins a growing list of infrastructure-level outages in recent years. The CrowdStrike crash in 2024 and a more recent AWS DNS failure that affected BetRivers Poker both demonstrated how easily external technical problems can spill over into online gaming.

Last week’s Cloudflare outage was short and ultimately minor, but it highlighted how much of the poker ecosystem depends on third-party systems operating smoothly — and how quickly a single failure elsewhere on the internet can send a wave through the industry.

Hi! I'm Zenderman, a professional poker instructor and streamer at Rakerace.com.

Rakerace.com offers top-notch rakeback deals and exclusive promotions, attracting many professional players. We also help smaller stakes players improve their skills and advance their poker careers with expert poker training.

I specialize in No-Limit Hold'em (NLHE) cash games, delivering high-quality content such as live gameplay, strategy sessions, hand analyses, and tutorials. My goal is to make complex poker strategies accessible and engaging for all players.

I have significant experience in chess, which has greatly helped my poker career. My deep interest in strategies has made me a successful instructor, helping many small-stakes players progress and achieve their poker dreams.

Join us at Rakerace.com to start your journey and achieve your poker goals. Let's develop your game together!