Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Online Gamblers Are On Poker Heaven

By Peter Werth

Gambling through poker has been around for decades, but has reached new heights with the introduction of online poker rooms. More and more online poker rooms are popping up with the driving force being poker addicts. With all this, it must be mentioned that sportsbooks pioneered online gambling... not poker!

One of the first online gambling casinos was from Microgaming, which arrived in 1994 and is now a popular gaming software developer.

Planet Poker was the initial mainstream casino introduced to gamblers in 1998. Even though where the first, they are no longer the best... with many high profile rooms being introduced since then (including FullTilt and PokerStars).

The unreliability of Poker Spot's system that was introduced in 1999 eventually resulted in its collapse afterwards. Basically, they couldn't withdraw player funds from credit card suppliers and thus couldn't pay anyone their winnings!

The first lucky millionaire from online gambling emerged in 2000, with the winner pocketing just over $1,500,000! It had to happen eventually with 700 online casinos recorder in 2001, and over 8 million people having gambled online at some point in time.

Not all casino companies went bust like Poker Spot. The Neteller e-cash system frees the player from using a wire transfer service or a credit card when depositing in an online poker room. Neteller's system has also minimized fraud and boosted the credibility of the industry.

Party Poker and Full Tilt Poker overtook Paradise in 2003 as the industry's top players with their strategic advertising on television. Full Tilt Poker took that even further by sponsoring all the top professional poker players, so gamblers could play against the pro's at their online poker tables.

The world poker tour was also introduced through online poker rooms such as Full Tilt and part Poker. Through such events, people such as Chris Moneymaker have contributed to the success and popularity of online poker... Chris went from paying a $40 entry fee to winning the world poker series!

When Chris defeated 839 other online poker players to compete at the World Series of Poker, he walked away with $2.5 million dollars by winning that event too. Since then, poker is getting more and more popular by the day.

This sort of Cinderella story has been fuel on the fire, causing more and more people to try their luck at poker.

Sportingbet's acquisition of Paradise Poker also opened new doors given the new owner's status as a listed company. Online training sites offer easy to learn advise on how to play the game. Revenues of online casino gambling firms rocketed during the year, which also saw the entry of new players such as Full Tilt Poker and Noble Poker. Listing on the stock market has become an option for online casinos to raise funds for expansion.

With the UK government passing a bill legalizing online gambling, it just goes to show that online gambling is a global phenomenon and here to stay.

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