Internet Poker History
Domino Bet What is Online Poker? Internet poker is your game of poker played over the web. It has been partially responsible for a huge gain in the amount of poker players worldwide. Christiansen Capital Advisors stated online poker earnings grew from $82.7 million in 2001 to $2.4 billion in 2005, while a survey carried out by DrKW and Global Betting and Gaming Consultants claimed online poker revenues in 2004 were at $1.4 billion. In a testimony before the United States Senate regarding Internet Gaming, Grant Eve, a Certified Public Accountant representing the US Accounting Firm Joseph Eve, Certified Public Accountants, estimated that one in every four dollars gambled is gambled online. Difference Between Traditional Poker and Online Poker Traditional (or "brick and mortar", B&M, live, land-based) venues for playing poker, like casinos and poker rooms, could be intimidating for novice players and are often located in geographically remote locations. Additionally, brick and mortar stores are reluctant to promote poker as it is difficult for them to gain from it. Although the rake, or time charge, of traditional casinos is often high, the opportunity costs of running a poker room are even greater. Brick and mortar casinos often make much more money by removing poker rooms and adding more slot machines for instance, figures by the Gambling Accounting Firm Joseph Eve estimate that poker accounts for 1 percent of brick and mortar casino revenues. Online venues, by contrast, are dramatically cheaper because they have much smaller overhead costs. For example, adding another table doesn't take up valuable space as it would for a brick and mortar casino. Internet poker rooms also permit the players to play low stakes (as low as 1cents/2cents) and frequently offer poker freeroll tournaments (in which there isn't any entry fee), attracting novices or less wealthy clientele. Online venues may be more vulnerable to certain kinds of fraud, especially collusion between players. But they've collusion detection abilities that don't exist in brick and mortar casinos. For instance, online poker room security employees can examine the history of the cards previously played by any player on the site, making patterns of behavior easier to detect than in a casino where colluding players can simply fold their hands without anybody ever knowing the strength of the holding. Online poker rooms also assess players' IP addresses so as to prevent players in the same household or at known open proxy servers from playing the same tables. Digital apparatus
fingerprinting also permits poker sites to recognize and prevent players that make new accounts in attempts to bypass prior accounts receivable, limitations and closures. History of Online Poker Free poker online was played as early as the late 1990s in the form of IRC poker game. Planet Poker was the first online card area to provide real cash games from 1998. The first real money poker match has been dealt on January 1, 1998. Author Mike Caro became the "face" of Planet Poker in October 1999. The significant internet poker sites offer varying features to entice new players. 1 common feature is to offer tournaments called satellites by which the winners gain access to real life poker tournaments. It was through one such tournament on PokerStars that Chris Moneymaker won his entry to the 2003 World collection of Poker. He moved on to win the main event, causing shock in the poker world, and beginning the poker boom. The 2004 World Series featured three times as many players as in 2003. At least four players in the WSOP final table won their entry through an online cardroom. Like Moneymaker, 2004 winner Greg Raymer also won his entry at the PokerStars online cardroom. Four Ways online poker rooms gain Typically, internet poker rooms generate the bulk of their revenue through four methods. First, there is the rake. Similar to the vig paid into a bookie, the rake is a charge paid into the home for hosting the game. Rake is accumulated from most real money ring game pots. The rake is generally calculated as a percentage of the pot based on a sliding scale and capped at a maximum fee. Each online poker room decides its own rake structure. Considering that the expenses for running an internet poker table are bigger than those for running a live poker desk, rake in the majority of online poker rooms is much more compact compared to its brick and mortar counterpart. Second, palms played in pre-scheduled multi-table and impromptu sit-and-go tournaments aren't raked, but instead an entrance fee approximately five to ten percent of the tournament buy-in is added to the entry cost of this tournament. These two are usually specified at the championship particulars as, e.g., $20+$2 ($20 signifies the buy-in which goes into the prize pool and $2 signifies the entrance fee, de facto rake). Unlike real casino tournaments, online tournaments do not deduct dealer tips and other expenses in the prize pool. Third, a few online poker websites also supply side games like blackjack, roulettes side stakes on poker hands where the player plays "the home" for actual cash. The odds are in the house's favor in these matches, so producing a gain for the home. Some sites go so far as becoming affiliated with online casinos, or even integrating them in the poker room software. Fourth, like almost all institutions that hold money, online poker sites invest the money that gamers deposit. Regulations in many jurisdictions exist in an effort to restrict the form of risks sites can take together with their clients' cash. However, since the sites don't have to pay attention on players' bankrolls even low-risk investments can be a substantial source of revenue. QQ Poker