A game portal is a distribution channel for games. People can play or download games from a portal and/or buy it through a game portal. One reason for using game portals is publicity: the top listings of games in game portals receive millions of downloads and/or gamers that want to play online - and generate much revenues. It is true that portals typically take 50-65% net sales share, but even then the rest of the share provides a good income especially for top game publishers.

Game portals contain online casual- and skillgames. These games are a growing genre of internet culture. They allow visitors to compete for money in games of skill or play various casual games online.

With gambling (mainly poker) becoming illegal in USA, attention has moved to skill gaming as the legal and safe way to play games to win cash.

Game portals are essentially websites where a game player meets the games they want to play. Most major game portals can be found through a search engine and other mediums, but a few are considered cloaked game portals. Game portals are constantly attempting to gain a larger percentage of traffic as traffic becomes revenue.

Game portals are now generally growing to be Flash-based, as Flash technology is light weight and has an increasing number of developers.