Online Poker, a growing Trend!
Online Poker began in the 1990's with the 1st Online Poker Room offering real money gambling play in 1998. As more people and players became more aware of Poker and Poker Events like the World Series Of Poker (WSOP) being televised, the popularity of the game exploded with poker players enjoying the game from all around the world.
By the turn of the century, and the popularity of the internet, more online poker rooms began popping up all around the internet.
Notably, Pokerstars and Paradise Poker, are noted to be two of the first online poker rooms to offer real money play. Online Poker revenue grew from a reported $82.7 million
a year in 2001 to a reported increase to $2.4 billion a year in 2005.
With 100's of online poker rooms and millions of players from all over the world, Online poker shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon in 2009, and revenues from online poker are sure to grow to over $100 billion.
Poker Bonuses:
With the revolution of online poker, many poker rooms will offer 1st deposit, re-load, or "Cash Up Front" deposit bonuses. Many bonuses from online poker rooms vary in their offers as they compete against each other to attract new players to their specific room. With online poker rooms, most have some type of comp point system that rewards players with points that can be used for many different things. These points are usually earned from the amount of money a player wagers while playing. These comp points can be used for entries into other tournaments such as freerolls or special tournaments such as satallites, which could earn you a seat into bigger tournaments of the online poker room or in Live Events such as the WSOP or WPT tournaments at landbased poker rooms for minimal buyins. The most notable online players to have made satallites famous are WSOP Main Event Winners, Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer. Also, comp points can be used to exchange for prizes such as clothing apparel or other such cool prizes. With that being said, many landbased casinos may reward casino and slot players with comp points player cards, but for poker players, unless you are a known poker pro, there isn't much for poker players to recieve as rewards from landbased casinos or poker rooms.
The Bonus Paradise Gambling Forum finds the best promotions of many poker rooms, and has compiled a list of many promotions and bonus offers from some of the best poker-rooms on the internet. Bonus Paradise not only finds the best promotions, but also sets up private games such as private poker freerolls for the community members of the Bonus Paradise Forum. Also, there are forum discussions with the latest poker news, members experiences of poker play whether online or live, and also the latest in online poker promotions. Bonus Paradise promotes the most recognized and trustworthy online poker rooms in the business, because the Bonus Paradise staff cares where their members play,
and the safety of their experience with online poker.
Promotional Poker Prizes:
Many poker rooms offer many promotional prizes such as free entries into the biggest poker tournaments around the world and free accomodations and stay at hosting casinos to go along with the entry. Also, most poker rooms run special monthly promotions to give players even more ways to win cash and prizes such as Wass Poker Room. Wass Poker Offers themed promotions such as seasonal task lists where for every so many comp points earned while you play, you complete a task on the task list. Often, there will be many levels and usually an extra $25,000 to win each month, just for being a loyal player, earning comp points as you play. 3rd Bullet Poker offers a little different scenario as you play. 3rd Bullet Poker has a gold card lottery and gold chip promotion that offers daily and monthly gold card lottery drawings for gold cards you earn by playing at cash game tables at their poker room. Daily prizes could be $100's in cash, or free entries into bigger guarenteed prizepools for oppertunties to win big money. Also, 3rd Bullet Poker offers you a chance to win a $52,000 jackpot for collecting the whole gold card series set. Most poker rooms host many promotions to make playing poker a bit more interesting at their poker room, giving players huge chances to win extra cash.
A Bit Of Poker History:
Poker in general has been around for ages dating back to as far as the early 1800's. From Mississippi riverboats to so called underground pokerrooms, the game has been a popular form of gambling for many years. Throughout poker history, there have been many changes throughout the years to evolve into the
game of poker many enjoy today. One evolution of poker began in 1970, The World Series Of Poker. With the growing popularity of poker, Online Poker emerged.
The advantages of playing poker online:
While there are advantages and disadvantages to everything, Online Poker advantages by far out-weigh the disadvantages, the number of players prove it. The many advantages of online poker range from player bonuses, the speed of play of online poker, 24/7 playabiltity from the comfort of your own home, affordability, promotional prizes, and much more.
24/7 Playability And Speed Of Online Poker:
One of the biggest advantages of online poker is the availabilty of the game. No matter where you are, what time of day, or how much time you have to play, online poker is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Online poker gives you the option of playing poker at your leisure. Most big games were only found in landbased casinos and poker rooms until now. Some online poker rooms gives you the chance to play for millions in prizepools every month without leaving the comfort of your own home. Online poker rooms such as Pokerstars, offers you the oppertunity to play in their monthly $1 million guarenteed tournaments. Many poker rooms have thousand's of dollars guarenteed daily to play for. Other options such as the speed of online play allows you to see many more hands without much delay. The average player playing very low stakes can win about $5-$10 an hour while playing live. With the speed of online poker, you can see 4 times as many hands therefore allowing you to win 4 times as much in that same hour of play. Also, while playing in live cash games or tournaments, you can only play at one table at a time, but while playing poker online, most poker rooms give you the oppertunity to play multiple tables with separate windows, allowing you to play many tables at one time if you so choose. Also, some poker rooms offer side games such as online slots, video poker, blackjack, and many other casino game favorites that you can play while waiting for your next hand to be dealt or your next online poker tournament to start. With online poker rooms, there is no doubt about the convenience compared to live landbased casinos and poker rooms.
Affordabilty of playing Poker:
Online poker rooms gives you the oppertunity to play for any stake that suits your needs. Whether you are a novice player that wants to play for small stakes as you learn and have fun, or if you are a high roller that wants to play with pro like stakes, online poker rooms can offer you whatever you desire. Most online poker rooms offer you cash game tables for as low as $.01/$.02 table stakes or even tournaments less than $1.00. Also, you can find table stakes and tournaments for $100's of dollars for that high roller in you. With Landbased Casinos and poker rooms, most table stakes can be a little too much for the average poker player looking to have a good time without worrying about losing large amounts of money. Online poker rooms offer any stake for any player, and is a one size fits all when it comes to online poker.
Security:
Security of online poker rooms are a concern of many. Most poker rooms use some type of high tech encryption and sophisticated collusion detection methods to ensure the highest levels of security available.
Online Poker Rooms review their security measures from time to time, and update existing security software to maintain high performance security.