Online+Poker

=__Online Poker__=

Online poker took the old game of poker to another level. it introduced poker onto the internet, and for that, it made poker one of the most popular games around the world. According to Wikipedia, "for the year of 2005 revenues from online poker were estimated at $200 million a month" (2006).

__Overview__
Online poker made headlines everywhere when Chris Moneymaker qualified to play in World Series of Poker (WSOP), one of the largest poker event in the world. He went ahead and won the tournement in 2003, winning him both money and fame. He was different from other qualifiers because he simply qualified into the tournament from PokerStar.com, an online poker site. This gained online poker huge publicity and the turn out for WSOP tripled in the following year (Wikipedia, 2006). Ironically, the winner for the 2004 WSOP event was also an "average joe" who qualified through PokerStar.com. These two separate incidents popularized poker everywhere. People from college students to white-collar workers were playing poker on their spare time. This obviously increased the market for online poker exponentially over the next few years.

Although gamblers still visits traditional brick and mortar casinos for poker, it is evident that these poker rooms cannot beat online poker in popularity. One of the major contributing factors for this is the distance and the scattered nature of these poker rooms, and poker rooms are not particularily profitable for casino owners. Another factor is the high stake of traditional poker rooms. The high stake to play turns off many amateur and beginner players, not to mention the intimidating environment these poker rooms can harness. In contrast, online poker's options of stake levels attracts many potential poker players. It's easy-accessibility is also a plus and a convenience for players who has difficulties traveling to the casino. The private environment (in-your-home) nature of online poker also invites even the shyest players to join in on this intricate game that relies on both skill and luck.

Online poker can be traced back to as early as 1994, when it first started as a computer game. With the perfection of safe online monetary transaction, and the invention of a secure and stable client softwares, online poker emerged in 1998 in the form of Planet Poker, followed by a more recognized name in 1999, Paradise Poker. Two other influencial players in the online poker industry are PartyPoker and PokerStar, both entered into the scene in 2001. PokerStar was recognized for their tournaments, evident through their 2003 and 2004 WSOP winners, and PartyPoker was popularized by their constant marketing campaigns and their sponsorship in the World Poker Tour (WPT) which televised through-out North America, and reaching as far as UK and other European countries. The high monetary gain of these televised tournament winners striked the hearts of millions of young teens, through the likes of legends such as Daniel Negreanu and Doyle Brunson.

Since the very first appearance of online poker, popular online poker rooms have now announced their public offerings. One of the notables is with PartyGaming, the parent company of PartyPoker, offering $8 billion dollars of market share at the London Stock Exchange in 2005 and acquiring EmpirePoker in 2006 (wikipedia, 2006).

__Earnings__
The popularity of online poker created a phenomenon never seen before in history. More and more people, young teens in particular are making a small living from this invention. Earning is defined by two factors: amount of hands played, and the stake these hands are played at. Obviously, the higher the number for both factors, the more profitable it is for the player, assuming that the player is a winning player.

Within the traditional poker rooms, dealers have to physically deal cards and collect cards (wikipedia, 2006), which is very time consuming. However, online poker rooms offer fast deal rate, lifting that number to approximately 60 hands per hour (sometimes even 120 hands per hour). This maximizes each player's opportunity to "rake in", as well as making a few dollars. The only way that traditional poker rooms can increase profit for players at the rate online poker rooms are offering, is increasing the player's stake on the table. However, this strategy doesn't always suite the needs of some players, beginners to be exact. Therefore online poker rooms are even more compelling for these beginners to join.

Another potential to increase online players' profit is the ability to play on multiple tables in an online poker room. This is physically impossible in the traditional poker rooms, and this stretches the limit on the amount of money players can make. Instead of making $10/hr in one table, a player can play at 5 tables, and make $40/hr. The downfall for playing multiple tables is the player's inability to concentrate on the strategies of other players on a particular table, and thus losing some winnable hands. However, the benefit for playing on multiple tables out-weighs the negative aspects of it, therefore it is still a popular option that online poker players like to take advantage of.

So how does the poker room themselves make money? A set rake per hand is what the online poker rooms make. Even just at 10 cents per hand per table, with up to 40 thousand players playing simultaneously (PartyPoker), and 10-players per table, that is approximately 400 dollars per hand the room makes. Now multiply that by 100 hands (average) per hour, that is 40 thousand dollars this poker room is making per hour. Online poker rooms are ran 24 hrs a day, making close to a million dollars a day just at the assumed 10 cents a hand, not mentioning higher rake for tables with higher stakes. One can easily do the calculations and understand the profitbility of online poker rooms.

__Skill or Luck?__
Even though the possiblity to make some money is big, the possiblity of losing money is also in question. The debate of whether or not poker is a matter of skill or luck has been brought up many times since the popularity of online poker. Televised poker tournaments sponsored by the online poker rooms boasts the "skill" part of poker, but average players do find that luck and guts dictates the game.

Online poker and traditional poker utilizes different strategies. They differ simply because the body languages of a person cannot be perceived in an online poker environment. Judgements in online poker rooms are strictly determined by the amounts betted, and the amount of time taken to take an action. It is hard to say which one is more useful between reading body languages and reading bets.

Aside from reading bets in online poker rooms, analysing patterns of play and history of hands played have proved to be extremely useful in determining the opponent's card strength. Many options such as re-raising or calling bets down can be used to counter different patterns to create a psychological effect in the opponent. These types of actions can catagorized as the skill part of online poker.

However, it is inevitable that luck plays into a game of cards. Luck intervenes the game in the respect of ratios and probability. Before matching a bet, a player has to calculate the odds in winning, catching a card, or other possibilities (skill), but whether or not the desired cards actually appearing in the following cards is another story.

Cheating within the world of online poker also tips the scale between skill and luck. Players "colluding" with each other (communicating with other players on the same table via phone or instant messengers and revealing cards to each other, which minimizes the problem of odds) happens frequently in online poker tables. Although measures have been taken to prevent such activities from happening (such as IP address detection, database of patterns of play...etc), it is extremely hard to completely eliminate such problem. Other than collusions, computer "bots" have been caught playing for players. However, technical cheating is harder to achieve because a large expense is spent by popular online poker rooms on security matters.

Speaking of security, how do players know that online poker rooms are not cheating themselves? These online poker sites have to obey the legislations, and they are required to have third party companies to inspect their software (both client and server). However, corruption and bribery is another possible issue at hand.

The roles between luck and skill is an interchangable one, it is evident that alot of online poker players lose money, but it is also apparent that familiar faces are always seen at the final tables in tournaments. The debate will not end here, but it acts as a motivation for beginners who wants to strike it rich by playing poker (one of the effects of online poker televised).

__Examples of Online Poker Rooms:__
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 * PartyPoker.com
 * PokerStar.com
 * ParadisePoker.com
 * AbsolutePoker.com
 * PokerRoom.com
 * FulltiltPoker.com
 * Bet180.com
 * Poker.com
 * FullContactPoker.com
 * Pacific Poker.com

__References:__
http://www.gamma-seven.com/info/history/index.shtml http://www.doylebrunson.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_poker http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/ http://www.pokertips.org/history/online-poker.php