The Gamble Pays Off: Online Poker
Various online casino gambling sites have sprouted in the past few years driven mainly by the popularity of poker. However, online poker did not pioneer casino gambling online, as sportsbooks were the first to arrive in the Internet during the mid-90′s. These days though, the popularity of poker is really dominating the online gamblers world.
One of the first online gambling casinos was from Microgaming, which arrived in 1994 and is now a popular gaming software developer.
The first mainstream online gambling casino was Planet Poker, which was established in 1998. A number of bigger and better online casino gambling sites came up after a few years. The initial rate structure of 5% and a max rate of as high as $3 have been the industry standard ever since.
There has been some controversy with online poker rooms, with Poker Spot being launched in 1999. They went bust not long after because they couldn’t withdraw player deposits from its credit card partners. This resulted that players failed to collect their winnings… and the rest is history as they say.
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.
Looking back at Poker Spot, it is good news for online poker players that new transaction methods have been introduced to add credibility to the industry. Neteller is a major player with their revolutionary e-cash system, where you transfer funds to Neteller, and then are free to transfer funds to and from the online casinos at will… making it nice and easy for you, whilst stamping out fraud in 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.
Satellite contests are also huge, with any major poker room holding competitions for online gamblers to compete for a spot at the world’s largest poker tournaments. Chris Moneymaker ended up winning an event and pocketing well over a million dollars, and it all started on an online poker table… such publicity increased the popularity of Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars dramatically!
His victory in the small tournament gave him a spot on the World Series of Poker. Mr Moneymaker defeated 839 other online poker contestants and won the top prize of $2.5 million. That year’s World Series of Poker tournament is still believed to be as the biggest ever staged in its short history.
Mr Moneymaker’s inspiring Cinderella story attracted more beginners to learn online poker and the game expanded to new territories in 2004.
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. Sportingbet’s acquisition of Paradise Poker also opened new doors given the new owner’s status as a listed company. 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.
