Seven Best Poker Gifts for 2025

Yet again, we are entering the holiday season. Time to ponder the best poker gifts for your friends and family. Or perhaps you are a poker player yourself, looking for some items to put on your holiday wish list. We have some great ideas that will make any poker player’s eyes light up with holiday joy. You don’t have to break the bank to find some great poker gifts. Just check out the options below.

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A Poker Player’s Life List

First up, our very own book A Poker Player’s Life List . While it is no longer brand new, it will still do the trick of allowing you to keep track of your poker exploits. You can read more about our book here. We have created a list of all of the poker rooms in the United States for you to keep track of where you have played and whether you liked the venue. We also have space to keep track of your poker bucket list. Finally, we have added a variety of pictures and quotes about poker for your reading enjoyment. Visit our book on Amazon and select “Read Sample” to get a better idea of what’s inside.

Copag Playing Cards

Play poker at home with the same cards used by casinos across the country. These COPAG playing cards are beautiful and feel good in your hands. They are made of quality plastic, so are extremely durable, and even come in a lovely black carrying case. COPAG is our preferred card deck at our house and we’ve never been disappointed with them. In fact, a new set may wind up in someone’s stocking next month!

The Gift of Poker Training

There are many great poker training services out there. We are particular fans of Advanced Poker Training (and not just because we write for Steve Blay on his website). APT is the only poker training option that allows you to learn how to play poker by actually playing the game. Their philosophy is founded on a simple, but critical, teaching precept: poker players learn faster and better through action and practice. Rather than watching a bunch of videos, APT allows you to dive right in and play 6-max, 9-max or a multi-table tournament. You can play against either standard exploitative bots or their new Game Theory Optimal (GTO) style bots (to really up your game against advanced competition!).

Last year APT named Alex Fitzgerald as their Head Pro. Alex has contributed a variety of poker strategy articles and a series of excellent combat trainers to help you improve your game. APT offers so many more features and training tools that it would take me a few thousand words to describe. Instead, I recommend that you sign up for a free account and then let their auto-mailer sequence show you all that APT has to offer. During the next few weeks, APT has excellent membership offers as well. You will get the best membership prices you will see all year.

The Perfect Poker Backpack

If you are a tournament player like us, you need to have your stuff with you for those long days at the poker table. We love these backpacks so much that we have bought three (one for each of us and one for my daughter). With a padded laptop section (Paul and I fit both of our laptops in one) and room for snacks, phones, chargers, and anything else you might desire, this backpack has you covered. There are front pockets, side pockets, and pockets within the pockets to keep everything nicely organized and ready for your next poker adventure.

Quality Poker Chip Set

If you are hosting a home game or even just like to play with the family around the kitchen table, you will want a good quality set of poker chips. There is nothing worse than playing with cheap plastic chips that you can’t shuffle and feel crappy in your hands. This is the set that we have at home and have been using for years. It’s got all of the chips you might need, dealer and all in buttons, and even a couple of spare decks of cards. Highly recommend.

Best Poker Books

Paul and I are suckers for poker books. We love training books, we love poker lifestyle books, and we love a great poker story. We have talked about our love for these books many times before. You will find recommendations in our posts about Best Poker Books for Learning Strategy and Best Poker Reads. After all of these years, Positively Fifth Street remains one of my all-time favorite poker books.

Last year we added a new training book to our favorites as well. Alex Fitzgerald’s How to Beat Players Who Never Fold is an excellent resource for those of us who play mostly low stakes cash and tournament games. I love this book so much that I wrote the review of it over at Cardplayer Lifestyle. So if you want to learn more, check out my write-up there.

Fun Poker T-Shirts

I would be remiss not to throw in recommendations for a couple of our favorite self-designed poker T-shirts. If you’re looking for a fun T-shirt to wear at the table we have several to offer. They can be found here. You can see one of our favorites below.

Bonus Gift Idea for the Poker Traveler

If you love pets and you love to travel, Trusted Housesitters may be for you! Trusted Housesitters matches up animal owners who need to go out of town with animal lovers who are looking for a place to stay. As a traveler, you can find thousands of housesits all over the world. Select by location, date, or type of animal that you would love to care for and spend your time with. There is an annual fee to maintain your membership and get access to the Trusted Housesitter listings. Beyond that, no money is exchanged. As a traveler you are simply committing to be there to care for an owner’s furry friend while they are on their own adventure. We love cats and have used Trusted Housesitters to visit the beach, Michigan, Northern New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Western Massachusetts in the past two years. We have had a wonderful time and have met several new cat friends along the way.

Look no further for the best poker gifts this holiday season. One of the above should be perfect for any poker player on your list!

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