Internet Poker
Poker88 What is Online Poker? Internet poker is the game of poker played over the Internet. It has been partly responsible for a huge increase in the number 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 earnings in 2004 were at $1.4 billion. In a testimony before the United States Senate regarding Internet Gambling, Grant Eve, a Certified Public Accountant representing that the US Enforcement Business 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, reside, land-based) venues for playing poker, like casinos and poker rooms, may be intimidating for novice players and are often found in geographically disparate locations. Also, brick and mortar stores are somewhat hesitant to promote poker as it is difficult for them to gain from it. Though the rake, or time charge, of traditional casinos is often large, 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 example, figures by the Gaming Accounting Firm Joseph Eve quote that poker accounts for 1% of brick and mortar casino earnings. Online venues, by contrast, are dramatically cheaper because they have much smaller overhead costs. For example, adding another table does not take up valuable space like it would for a physical casino. Online poker rooms also allow the players to play for low stakes (as low as 1cents/2cents) and often provide poker freeroll tournaments (in which there is no entry fee), attracting novices or less wealthy clientele. Online venues may be more vulnerable to certain types of fraud, especially collusion between players. But they've collusion detection abilities that do not exist in brick and mortar casinos. By way of 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 anyone ever knowing the strength of their
holding. Online poker rooms also assess players' IP addresses in order to prevent players in precisely the same home or at known open proxy servers from playing on the very same tables. Digital device fingerprinting also permits poker sites to recognize and prevent players who create new accounts in attempts to bypass prior accounts receivable, limitations and closures. History of Online Poker Free poker online was performed as early as the late 1990s in the kind of IRC poker. Planet Poker was the first online card room to offer real cash games from 1998. The initial real money poker match has been dealt on January 1, 1998. Author Mike Caro became the "face" of Planet Poker at October 1999. The major online poker sites offer varying features to entice new players. 1 common feature is to offer tournaments called satellites by which the winners gain entry to real life poker tournaments. It was through one such tournament on PokerStars which Chris Moneymaker won his entry to the 2003 World Series of Poker. He went 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 profit Normally, online poker rooms create the bulk of their revenue via four methods. First, there's the rake. Similar to the vig paid into a bookie, the rake is a fee paid to the house for hosting the match. Rake is collected from most real money ring game pots. The rake is generally calculated as a proportion of the pot according to a sliding scale and capped at a maximum fee. Each online poker area determines its own rake structure. Considering that the expenses for running an internet poker table are smaller than those for running a live poker table, rake in the majority of internet poker rooms is a lot more compact compared to its brick and mortar counterpart. Secondly, hands played in pre-scheduled multi-table and impromptu sit-and-go championships aren't raked, but rather an entry fee approximately five to ten percent of this championship buy is added to the entry price of this tournament. These two are generally specified in the championship details as, e.g., $20+$2 ($20 signifies the buy-in that goes into the prize pool and $2 signifies the entrance fee, de facto rake). Unlike real casino tournaments, online tournaments don't deduct trader tips and other expenses from the prize pool. Third, a few online poker sites also supply side games like blackjack, roulettes , or side bets on poker hands where the player plays "the house" for actual money. The odds are in your house's favor in these games, thus producing a gain for the house. Some sites go as far as getting affiliated with internet casinos, or even incorporating them in the poker room program. Fourth, like almost all institutions which hold money, online poker sites invest the money that gamers deposit. Regulations in most jurisdictions exist in a bid to limit the form of dangers websites can take with their customers' cash. But since the sites do not need to pay attention on gamers' bankrolls even low-risk investments can be a substantial source of revenue. Agen Poker