Online poker
Encyclopedia
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
played over the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. It has been partly responsible for a dramatic increase in the number of poker players worldwide. Christiansen Capital Advisors stated online poker revenues 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 asserted online poker revenues in 2004 were at $1.4 billion.
Overview
Traditional (or "brick and mortarBrick and mortar
Brick and mortar in its most simplest usage is used to describe the physical presence of a building or other structure...
", B&M, live) venues for playing poker, such as casino
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
s and poker rooms, may be intimidating for novice players and are often located in geographically disparate locations. Also, brick and mortar casinos are reluctant to promote poker because it is difficult for them to profit from it. Though the rake
Rake (poker)
Rake is the scaled commission fee taken by a cardroom operating a poker game. It is generally 5 to 10 percent of the pot in each poker hand, up to a predetermined maximum amount. There are also other non-percentage ways for a casino to take the rake. Some cardrooms will not take a percentage rake...
, or time charge, of traditional casinos is often high, the opportunity cost
Opportunity cost
Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the best alternative that is not chosen . It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone, or group, who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices. The opportunity cost is also the...
s of running a poker room are even higher. Brick and mortar casinos often make much more money by removing poker rooms and adding more slot machine
Slot machine
A slot machine , informally fruit machine , the slots , poker machine or "pokies" or simply slot is a casino gambling machine with three or more reels which spin when a button is pushed...
s.
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 brick and mortar casino. Online poker rooms also allow the players to play for low stakes (as low as 1¢/2¢) and often offer poker freeroll
Freeroll (poker)
In poker, a freeroll has two distinct meanings. One applies to the play of a single hand, and the other describes an entire poker tournament.-Freeroll hand:...
tournaments (where there is no entry fee), attracting beginners and/or less wealthy clientele.
Online venues may be more vulnerable to certain types of fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
, especially collusion
Collusion
Collusion is an agreement between two or more persons, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage...
between players. However, they have collusion detection abilities that do not exist in brick and mortar casinos. For example, online poker room security employees can look at the hand history
Hand history
A hand history is a record of the action in an online poker hand. These records are generated by poker sites, and used internally to track player behavior and provide a verifiable log to resolve player disputes...
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 check players' IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
es in order to prevent players at the same household or at known open proxy
Open proxy
An open proxy is a proxy server that is accessible by any Internet user. Generally, a proxy server allows users within a network group to store and forward Internet services such as DNS or web pages to reduce and control the bandwidth used by the group...
servers from playing on the same tables.
Free poker online was played as early as the late 1990s in the form of IRC poker
IRC poker
IRC poker was a form of poker played over the IRC chat protocol before the surge in popularity of online poker in the early 2000's. A computer program was used to deal and manage the games. Commands could be typed in directly with a standard IRC client but point-and-click graphical clients were...
. Planet Poker
Planet Poker
Planet Poker was the first real-money cardroom for playing online poker, opening in 1998.-The pioneer:Without an existing model to follow, Planet Poker founder Randy Blumer was entering uncharted territory. During the initial launch and testing phases in late 1997, Planet Poker started to build a...
was the first online cardroom to offer real money games. The first real money poker game was dealt on January 1, 1998. Author Mike Caro
Mike Caro
Mike A. Caro is a professional poker player, pioneer poker theorist, author of poker books, and casino executive.-Author:...
became the "face" of Planet Poker in October 1999.
The major online poker sites offer varying features to entice new players. One 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
PokerStars
PokerStars is the largest online poker cardroom in the world. PokerStars' satellite tournaments produced the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, Chris Moneymaker. 1983 champion Tom McEvoy, 2005 champion Joe Hachem, 2009 champion Joe Cada and 2010 champion Jonathan Duhamel and others also represent...
that Chris Moneymaker
Chris Moneymaker
Christopher Bryan Moneymaker is an American poker player who won the main event at the 2003 World Series of Poker . His 2003 win is said to have revolutionized poker because he was the first person to become a world champion by qualifying at an online poker site...
won his entry to the 2003 World Series of Poker
World Series of Poker
The World Series of Poker is a world-renowned series of poker tournaments held annually in Las Vegas and, since 2005, sponsored by Harrah's Entertainment...
. He went on to win the main event, causing shock in the poker world, and beginning the poker boom
Poker boom
The poker boom was a period between 2003 and 2006, during which poker, primarily no limit Texas hold 'em, but also other variations, became considerably more popular around the world...
. 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
Greg Raymer
Gregory Raymer nicknamed "Fossilman," is a professional poker player. He is best known for winning the 2004 World Series of Poker Main Event.-Early life:...
also won his entry at the PokerStars
PokerStars
PokerStars is the largest online poker cardroom in the world. PokerStars' satellite tournaments produced the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, Chris Moneymaker. 1983 champion Tom McEvoy, 2005 champion Joe Hachem, 2009 champion Joe Cada and 2010 champion Jonathan Duhamel and others also represent...
online cardroom.
In October 2004, Sportingbet
Sportingbet
Sportingbet plc is a British e-gaming operator. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index.-History:The Company was founded by Mark Blandford in 1997. Sportingbet acquired Paradise Poker in October 2004...
, at the time the world's largest publicly traded online gaming company (SBT.L), announced the acquisition of ParadisePoker.com
Sportingbet
Sportingbet plc is a British e-gaming operator. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index.-History:The Company was founded by Mark Blandford in 1997. Sportingbet acquired Paradise Poker in October 2004...
, one of the online poker industry's first and largest cardrooms. The $340 million dollar acquisition marked the first time an online cardroom was owned by a public company. Since then, several other cardroom parent companies have gone public.
In June 2005, PartyGaming
PartyGaming
bwin.Party Digital Entertainment Plc is an online gambling company, formed by the March 2011 merger of PartyGaming plc and bwin. The world's largest publicly traded online gambling firm, it is best known for its online poker room PartyPoker.com and its sports betting brand Bwin. It is...
, the parent company of the then largest online cardroom, PartyPoker, went public on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
, achieving an initial public offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
market value in excess of $8 billion dollars. At the time of the IPO, ninety-two percent of Party Gaming's income came from poker operations.
In early 2006, PartyGaming moved to acquire EmpirePoker.com from Empire Online
Empire Online
Livermore Investment Group is an investment company established by Arnon Katz and Noam Lanir traded on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol . Formerly known as Empire Online, the company was created in 2002...
. Later in the year, bwin, an Austrian based online gambling company, acquired PokerRoom.com. Other poker rooms such as PokerStars
PokerStars
PokerStars is the largest online poker cardroom in the world. PokerStars' satellite tournaments produced the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, Chris Moneymaker. 1983 champion Tom McEvoy, 2005 champion Joe Hachem, 2009 champion Joe Cada and 2010 champion Jonathan Duhamel and others also represent...
that were rumored to be exploring initial public offerings have postponed them.
As of March 2008, there are fewer than forty stand-alone cardrooms and poker networks with detectable levels of traffic. There are however more than 600 independent doorways or 'skins' into the group of network sites. As of January 2009, the majority of online poker traffic occurs on just a few major networks, among them PokerStars
PokerStars
PokerStars is the largest online poker cardroom in the world. PokerStars' satellite tournaments produced the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, Chris Moneymaker. 1983 champion Tom McEvoy, 2005 champion Joe Hachem, 2009 champion Joe Cada and 2010 champion Jonathan Duhamel and others also represent...
, Full Tilt Poker
Full Tilt Poker
Full Tilt Poker is an online poker card room that opened in June 2004 with the involvement of poker professionals Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Jennifer Harman and Chris Ferguson...
and the iPoker Network
Playtech
Playtech Ltd. is a gaming software development company founded in 1999. The company provides software for online casinos, online poker rooms, online bingo games, online sports betting, scratch games, mobile gaming, live dealer games and fixed-odds arcade games online.-Playtech gaming software and...
.
As of February 2010, there are approximately 545 online poker websites. Within the 545 active sites, about two dozen are stand-alone sites (down from 40 in March 2008), while the remaining sites are called “skins” and operate on 21 different shared networks, the largest network being iPoker which has dozens of skins operating on its network. Of all the online poker rooms PokerStars.com is deemed the world’s largest poker site by number of players on site at any one time.
Legality
From a legal perspective, online poker may differ in some ways from online casino gambling. However, many of the same issues do apply. For a discussion of the legality of online gambling in general, see online gamblingOnline gambling
Online gambling, also known as Internet gambling and iGambling, is a general term for gambling using the Internet.-Online poker:Online poker tables commonly offer Texas hold 'em, Omaha, Seven-card stud, razz, HORSE and other game types in both tournament and ring game structures...
.
Online poker is legal and regulated in many countries including several nations in and around the Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean located in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles, and to the east by the Lesser Antilles....
, and most notably the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
In the United States, the North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
House of Representatives passed a bill in February 2005 to legalize and regulate online poker and online poker cardroom operators in the state. The legislation required that online poker operations would have to physically locate their entire operations in the state. Testifying before the state Senate Judiciary committee, Nigel Payne, CEO of Sportingbet and owner of Paradise Poker, pledged to relocate to the state if the bill became law.
The measure, however, was defeated by the State Senate in March 2005 after the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to North Dakota attorney general Wayne Stenehjem
Wayne Stenehjem
Wayne Stenehjem is a lawyer and politician from the U.S. state of North Dakota. He is the current Attorney General of the state, serving since 2000.-Biography:...
stating that online gaming "may" be illegal, and that the pending legislation "might" violate the federal Wire Act
Federal Wire Act
The Interstate Wire Act of 1961, often called the Federal Wire Act, is a United States federal law prohibiting the operation of certain types of betting businesses in the United States. It begins with the text:...
. However, many legal experts dispute the DOJ's claim.
In response to this and other claims by the DOJ regarding the legality of online poker, many of the major online poker sites stopped advertising their "dot-com" sites in American media. Instead, they created "dot-net" sites that are virtually identical but offer no real money wagering. The sites advertise as poker schools or ways to learn the game for free, and feature words to the effect of "this is not a gambling website."
On October 13, 2006, President Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
officially signed into law the SAFE Port Act
SAFE Port Act
The Security and Accountability For Every Port Act of 2006 was an Act of Congress in the United States covering port security and to which an online gambling measure was added at the last moment...
, a bill
Bill (proposed law)
A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....
aimed at enhancing security at U.S. ports. Attached to the Safe Port Act was a provision known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 is United States legislation regulating online gambling. It was added as Title VIII to the SAFE Port Act which otherwise regulated port security...
(UIGEA). According to the UIGEA, "unlawful internet gambling" means to place, receive, or otherwise knowingly transmit a bet or wager by means of the internet where such bet is unlawful under any law in the State in which the bet is initiated, received, or otherwise made. Thus, the UIGEA prohibits online gambling sites from performing transactions with American financial institutions. As a result of the bill, several large publicly traded poker gaming sites such as PartyPoker.com, PacificPoker.com
Cassava Enterprises
888 Holdings plc is a company which operates several high-profile gambling websites. It was founded in 1997 and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index....
and bwin closed down their US facing operations. Some operations have not closed and it is still possible for some American players to play online for real money and even sign up for new accounts. The UIGEA has had a devastating effect on the stock value of these companies.
Following passage of UIGEA, former U.S. Senator Al D'Amato
Al D'Amato
Alfonse Marcello "Al" D'Amato is an American lawyer and former New York politician. A Republican, he served as United States Senator from New York from 1981 to 1999.-Early life and family:...
joined the Poker Players Alliance
Poker Players Alliance
The Poker Players Alliance is an American nonprofit Interest group formed "to speak with one voice to promote poker, and to protect the players' rights." The PPA formed to serve as an advocacy group to Washington to establish rights and protections for U.S. poker players. Within the first year of...
(PPA). Part of the PPA's mission is to protect and to advocate for the right of poker players to play online. Sen. D'Amato's responsibilities include Congressional lobbying. In April 2008 the PPA claimed over 1,000,000 members. The organization claimed just over 800,000 members in October 2007.
Other grassroots organizations, including the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative
Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative
The Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative promotes an individual's freedom to gamble online in the interest of creating safeguards to protect consumers and ensure financial transactions are legal and safe.-Background:...
, have formed in opposition to UIGEA, to promote the freedom of individuals to gamble online with the proper safeguards to protect consumers and ensure the integrity of financial transactions.
On November 27, 2009, Department of the Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner
Timothy F. Geithner
Timothy Franz Geithner is an American economist, central banker, and civil servant. He is the 75th and current United States Secretary of the Treasury, serving under President Barack Obama...
and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke announced a six month delay, until June 1, 2010, for required compliance with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). The move blocks regulations to implement the legislation which requires the financial services sector to comply with ambiguous and burdensome rules in an attempt to prevent unlawful Internet gambling transactions.
On July 28, 2010, the House Financial Services Committee passed H.R. 2267 by a vote of 41-22-1. The bill would legalize and regulate online poker in the United States.
In September 2010, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld a law making playing poker online a felony
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
.
On April 15, 2011, in U. S. v. Scheinberg et al. (10 Cr. 336), the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
shut down three major poker .com
.com
The domain name com is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations...
websites of Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and Absolute Poker, and seized several of their bank accounts. A grand jury has charged 11 defendants, including the founders of the poker sites, with bank fraud, money laundering, and violating gambling laws. The prosecutors are claiming that the sites tricked and bribed U.S. banks to receive profits from online gambling, an act that violated UIGEA. The same day, former Senator D'Amato released a comment on behalf of the PPA. He asserts that, "Online poker is not a crime and should not be treated as such." D'Amato made no comment on the specific charges raised but promised a response once the "full facts become available." He responded in the Washington Post on April 22.
The actions by the Department of Justice were also criticized by gaming law experts, including Professor I. Nelson Rose.."
How online poker rooms profit
Typically, online poker rooms generate the bulk of their revenue via four methods. First, there is the rakeRake (poker)
Rake is the scaled commission fee taken by a cardroom operating a poker game. It is generally 5 to 10 percent of the pot in each poker hand, up to a predetermined maximum amount. There are also other non-percentage ways for a casino to take the rake. Some cardrooms will not take a percentage rake...
. Rake is collected from most real money ring game
Cash game
Cash games, also sometimes referred to as ring games or live action games, are poker games played with "real" chips and money at stake, usually with no predetermined end time, with players able to enter and leave as they see fit...
pots. The rake is normally calculated as a percentage of the pot based on a sliding scale and capped at some maximum fee. Each online poker room determines its own rake structure. Since the expenses for running an online poker table are smaller than those for running a live poker table, rake in most online poker rooms is much smaller than its brick and mortar counterpart.
Second, hands played in pre-scheduled multi-table and impromptu sit-and-go tournaments
Poker tournament
A poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table , and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on thousands of tables...
are not raked, but rather an entry fee around five to ten percent of the tournament buy-in is added to the entry cost of the tournament. These two are usually specified in the tournament details as, e.g., $20+$2 ($20 represents the buy-in that goes into the prize pool and $2 represents the entry fee, de facto rake). Unlike real casino tournaments, online tournaments do not deduct dealer tips and other expenses from the prize pool.
Third, some online poker sites also offer games like blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
or side bets on poker hands where the player plays against "the house" for real money. The odds are in the house's favor in these games, thus producing a profit for the house. Some sites go as far as getting affiliated with online casino
Online casino
Online casinos, also known as virtual casinos or Internet casinos, are online versions of traditional casinos. Online casinos enable gamblers to play and wager on casino games through the Internet....
s, or even integrating them into the poker room software.
Fourth, like almost all institutions that hold money, online poker sites invest the money that players deposit. Regulations in most jurisdictions exist in an effort to limit the sort of risks sites can take with their clients' money. However, since the sites do not have to pay interest on players' bankrolls even low-risk investments can be a significant source of revenue.
Randomness of the shuffle
As with other forms of online gambling, many critics question whether the operators of such games - especially those located in jurisdictions separate from most of their players - might be engaging in fraud themselves.Internet discussion forums are rife with allegations of non-random card dealing, possibly to favour house-employed players or "bot
Computer game bot
A bot, most prominently in the first-person shooter types , is a type of weak AI expert system software which for each instance of the program controls a player in deathmatch, team deathmatch and/or cooperative human player. Computer bots may play against other bots and/or human players in unison,...
s" (poker-playing software disguised as a human opponent), or to give multiple players good hands thus increasing the bets and the rake, or simply to prevent new players from losing so quickly that they become discouraged. However, there is no more than anecdotal evidence
Anecdotal evidence
The expression anecdotal evidence refers to evidence from anecdotes. Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be true but unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise unrepresentative of typical cases....
to support such claims, and others argue that the rake is sufficiently large that such abuses would be unnecessary and foolish. Any attempt at manipulative dealing would run a significant risk of third party detection due to increasingly sophisticated tracking software that could be used to detect any number of unusual patterns.
Many players claim to see lots of "bad beats" with large hands pitted against others all too often at a rate that seems to be a lot more common than in live games. However, this might actually be caused by the fact that online cardrooms deal more hands per hour. Since online players get to see more hands, their likelihood of seeing more improbable bad beats or randomly large pots is similarly increased.
Many new players fail to understand that there is a great deal of variance in poker (like most card games) whether the game is played live or online. On the other hand, newcomers who experience a run of bad luck are more likely to suspect foul play when simple variance is the most likely cause.
Many online poker sites are certified by bodies such as the Kahnawake Gaming Commission
Kahnawake Gaming Commission
The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is a gaming regulatory body that licenses and regulates a large number of online casinos, online poker rooms and online sportsbook sites, as well as three land-based poker rooms that are situated within the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake.The Commission was first...
and major auditing firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers
PricewaterhouseCoopers is a global professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest professional services firm measured by revenues and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms....
to review the fairness of the random number generator, shuffle
Shuffle
Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to help ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome.-Shuffling techniques:...
, and payouts for some sites.
Insider cheating
Insider cheatingCheating
Cheating refers to the breaking of rules to gain advantage in a competitive situation. The rules infringed may be explicit, or they may be from an unwritten code of conduct based on morality, ethics or custom, making the identification of cheating a subjective process. Cheating can refer...
can occur when a person with trusted access to the system (e.g. an employee of the poker room) uses his position to play poker himself with an unfair advantage. This could be done without the knowledge of the site managers.
Perhaps the first known major case came to light in October 2007, when Absolute Poker acknowledged that its integrity had been breached by an employee, who had been able to play at high stakes while viewing his opponents' hidden "hole" cards. The cheating was first brought to light by the efforts of players, whose saved histories of play showed the employee was playing as only someone who could see their opponents' cards could.
In 2008, UltimateBet became embroiled in a similar scandal, with former employees accused of using a software backdoor to see opponents' cards. UltimateBet confirmed the allegations on May 29. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission
Kahnawake Gaming Commission
The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is a gaming regulatory body that licenses and regulates a large number of online casinos, online poker rooms and online sportsbook sites, as well as three land-based poker rooms that are situated within the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake.The Commission was first...
announced sanctions against UltimateBet as a result.
Collusion
More mundane cheating involves collusion between players, or the use of multiple accounts by a single player. Collusion is not limited to online play but can occur in any poker game with three or more players. Most poker rooms claim to actively scan for such activity. For example, in 2007, PokerStarsPokerStars
PokerStars is the largest online poker cardroom in the world. PokerStars' satellite tournaments produced the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, Chris Moneymaker. 1983 champion Tom McEvoy, 2005 champion Joe Hachem, 2009 champion Joe Cada and 2010 champion Jonathan Duhamel and others also represent...
disqualified TheV0id, the winner of the main event of the World Championship of Online Poker
World Championship of Online Poker
The World Championship of Online Poker is an online poker tournament series sponsored by PokerStars. It is played on the PokerStars site in September....
for breaching their terms of service.
Third party security
- Hand summary obfuscation (HSO) is used in competitive electronic web based card games of skill to provided an extra layer of security to prevent opponent players from the status of a live hand. HSO is implemented by an unbiased 3rd party to maintain the status of live hands. This status includes player's cards, order of the remaining card deck and so on. HSO came about when Internet based electronic poker sites were discovered to be participating in fraudulent activity.
- Down card concealment (DCC) is implemented by an unbiased 3rd party to deal cards to players in such a way that only the 3rd party and the player has the information about the secret cards a player holds. DCC came about when Internet based electronic poker sites were discovered to be participating in fraudulent activity.
Fraudulent activity shook the online poker world when Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker allowed certain players information about poker hands giving them an unfair advantage over other players. The fraudulent activity exposed a weakness when an on-line poker site needs to maintain hand information during the course of play. This hand information was provided to certain players, allowing those players to steal money from other players. HSO and DCC prevent this since the technique of using an unbiased 3rd party to maintain the data, prevent any one entity from associating hand information and either using that information to gain an unfair advantage or providing that information to another player so that player also gains an unfair advantage over his/her competitors.
Differences compared with conventional poker
There are substantial differences between online poker gaming and conventional, in-person gaming.One obvious difference is that players do not sit right across from each other, removing any ability to observe others' reactions and body language
Body language
Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals almost entirely subconsciously....
. Instead, online poker players learn to focus more keenly on betting patterns, reaction time, speed of play, use of check boxes/auto plays, opponents' fold/flop percentages, chat box, waiting for the big blind, beginners' tells, and other behavior tells
Tell (poker)
A tell in poker is a change in a player's behavior or demeanor that is claimed by some to give clues to that player's assessment of their hand. A player gains an advantage if they observe and understand the meaning of another player's tell, particularly if the tell is unconscious and reliable...
that are not physical in nature. Since poker is a game that requires adaptability, successful online players learn to master the new frontiers of their surroundings.
Another less obvious difference is the rate of play. In brick and mortar casinos the dealer has to collect the cards, shuffle, and deal them after every hand. Due to this and other delays common in offline casinos, the average rate of play is around thirty hands per hour. However, online casinos do not have these delays. The dealing and shuffling are instantaneous, there are no delays relating to counting chips (for a split pot), and on average the play is faster due to "auto-action" buttons (where the player selects his action before his turn). It is not uncommon for an online poker table to average ninety to one hundred hands per hour.
There are many ways in which online poker is considerably cheaper to play than conventional poker. While the rake structures of online poker sites might not differ fundamentally from those in brick and mortar operations, most of the other incidental expenses that are entailed by playing poker in a live room do not exist in online poker. An online poker player can play at home and thus incur no transportation costs to get to and from the poker room. Provided the player already has a somewhat modern computer and an Internet connection, there are no further up-front equipment costs to get started. There are also considerable incidental expenses once on a live poker table. In addition to the rake, tipping the dealers, chip runners, servers and other casino employees is almost universally expected, putting a further drain on a player's profits. Also, whereas an online player can enter and leave tables almost as he pleases, once seated at a live table a player must remain there until he wishes to stop playing, or else go back to the bottom of the waiting list. Food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
and beverages at casinos are generally expensive even compared to other hospitality establishments in the same city (let alone compared to at home) and casino managers feel little incentive to comp poker players.
In the brick and mortar casinos, the only real way a player can increase his earnings is to increase his limit, likely encountering better opponents in the process. In the online world players have another option: play more tables. Unlike a traditional casino where it is physically impossible to play at more than one table at a time, most online poker rooms permit this. Depending on the site and the player's ability to make speedy decisions, a player might play several tables at the same time, viewing them each in a separate window on the computer display. For example, an average profit around $10 per 100 hands at a low-limit game is generally considered to be good play. In a casino, this would earn a player under $4 an hour. After dealer tips, the "winning" player would probably barely break even before any other incidental expenses. In an online poker room, a player with the same win rate playing a relatively easy pace of four tables at once at a relatively sluggish 60 hands per hour each earns about $24/hour on average. The main restriction limiting the number of tables a player can play is the need to make consistently good decisions within the allotted time at every table, but some online players can effectively play up to eight or more tables at once. This can not only increase winnings but can also help to keep a player's income reasonably stable, since instead of staking his entire bankroll on one higher limit table he is splitting his bankroll, wins and losses amongst many lower limit tables, probably also encountering somewhat less skilled opponents in the process.
Another important difference results from the fact that some online poker rooms offer online poker schools that teach the basics and significantly speed up the learning curve for novices. Many online poker rooms also provide free money play so that players may practice these skills in various poker games and limits without the risk of losing real money, and generally offer the hand history of played hands for analysis and discussion using a poker hand converter
Poker tools
Poker tools are a variety of software or web-based applications that allow the statistical analysis of poker players, games or tournaments.-Hand converters:...
. People who previously had no way to learn and improve because they had no one to play with now have the ability to learn the game much quicker and gain experience from free-money play.
The limits associated with online poker range down to far lower levels than the table limits at a traditional casino. The marginal cost
Marginal cost
In economics and finance, marginal cost is the change in total cost that arises when the quantity produced changes by one unit. That is, it is the cost of producing one more unit of a good...
of opening each online table is so minuscule that on some gambling sites players can find limits as low as $.01–$.02. By comparison, at most brick and mortar establishments the lowest limits are often $1–$2.
Few (if any) online poker sites allow action to be taken "in the dark", while this is usually allowed and applied by players in real gaming houses. It is also not uncommon for online poker sites to not allow a player the option of showing their hand before folding if they are the giving up the pot to the last remaining bettor. This practice is also typically allowed in casinos.
Currency issues
One issue exclusive to online poker is the fact that players come from around the world and deal in a variety of currencies. This is not an issue in live poker where everyone present can be expected to carry the local currency. Most online poker sites operate games exclusively in U.S. dollarsUnited States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
, even if they do not accept players based in the United States. There are two methods by which poker sites can cater to players who do not deal with U.S. dollars on a regular basis.
The first method is to hold players' funds in their native currencies and convert them only when players enter and leave games. The main benefit of this method for players is to ensures that bankrolls are not subject to exchange rate
Exchange rate
In finance, an exchange rate between two currencies is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another. It is also regarded as the value of one country’s currency in terms of another currency...
fluctuations against their local currencies whilst they are not playing. Also, most sites that use this method usually apply the same exchange rate when a player cashes out of a game as when he bought in, ensuring that players do not expend significant sums simply by entering and leaving games.
The other method is to require players to convert their funds when depositing them. However, some sites that use this policy do accept payments in a variety of currencies and convert funds at a lower premium compared to what bank
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...
s and credit card
Credit card
A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
companies would charge. Others only accept payment in U.S. dollars. One benefit of this method is that a player who constantly "tops up" his chip stack to a constant level (some poker rooms have an optional feature that can perform this function automatically) does not have to worry about rounding issues when topping up with a nominal sum – these could add up over time.
Players may also make use of ewallets
Digital wallet
A digital wallet allows users to make electronic commerce transactions quickly and securely.A digital wallet functions much like a physical wallet...
, virtual wallets that will allow players to store their funds online in the currency of their choice. This allows them to deposit at poker sites without worrying about further currency conversion.
Poker tools
Various types of useful software applicationsPoker tools
Poker tools are a variety of software or web-based applications that allow the statistical analysis of poker players, games or tournaments.-Hand converters:...
are available for online play.
Bonuses
Many online poker sites offer incentives to players in the form of bonuses. For example, a site may offer a player who deposits $100 a bonus of $50 once he plays 500 raked hands.In addition, several online cardrooms have developed VIP programs to reward regular players. Poker rooms often offer additional bonuses for players who wish to top-up their accounts. These are known as reload bonuses.
See the online casino article for more on general information on bonuses.
Compatibility
Online poker rooms typically operate through a separate piece of software. This may be cross-platform, for example using a JavaJava (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
Applet
Java applet
A Java applet is an applet delivered to users in the form of Java bytecode. Java applets can run in a Web browser using a Java Virtual Machine , or in Sun's AppletViewer, a stand-alone tool for testing applets...
, allowing the program to run equally well on various computer systems such as Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
. However, many online poker rooms offer downloadable programs designed only for Microsoft Windows which require a compatibility layer such as Wine
Wine (software)
Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
to run on Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
or Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
computers. Some sites do make available clients that run natively on Mac or Linux.
Some mobile content providers have started offering poker on portable devices (mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s, PDA
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
s). The functionality of mobile online poker software is much the same as computer-based clients, albeit adapted to the interface of mobile devices. The player must be able to receive a cell phone signal in order to play.