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Online poker
Online poker is the game of poker played above the Internet (online). It has been accountable for a dramatic increase in the number of poker players worldwide, and as of December 2003, revenues from online poker were predictable at US$34 million per month.
Traditional (or "brick and mortar", B&M) venues for playing poker, such as casinos and poker rooms, may be threatening for novice players and are located in geographically dissimilar locations. Brick and mortar casinos are also reticent to promote poker because it is very hard for them to profit from the activity. Though the rake, or time indict, of traditional casinos is often very high, the chance costs of running a poker room are even higher. Brick and mortar casinos frequently make much more money by removing poker rooms and adding additional slot machines.
Online venues, by contrast, are radically cheaper because they have much smaller overhead costs. For example, adding up another table does not take up valuable space like it would for a brick and mortar casino. Online poker rooms be inclined to be viewed as more player-friendly. For example, the software may prompt the player when it is his or her turn to act. Online poker rooms also permit the players to play for very low stakes (as low as 1¢) and frequently offer poker free rolls (where there is no entry fee), attracting beginners.
Online venues may be more susceptible to certain types of fraud, especially collusion between players. However, they also have conspiracy detection abilities that do not exist in brick and mortar casinos. For example, online poker room safety employees can look at the "hand history" of the cards before played by any player on the site, making patterns of performance easier to detect than in a casino where colluding players can merely fold their hands without anyone ever meaningful the strength of their holding. Online poker rooms also check player's IP addresses in order to stop players at the same household or at known unlock proxy servers from playing on the same tables.
The major online poker sites offer unreliable features to entice new players. One common feature is to present tournaments called satellites by which the winners gain entry to real-life poker tournaments. It was through one such contest that Chris Moneymaker won his admission to the 2003 World Series of Poker. He went on to win the main occasion causing shock in the poker world. The 2004 World Series featured triple the amount of players in excess of the 2003 turnout. At least four players in the WSOP final table won their entry from side to side an online card room. Like Moneymaker, 2004 winner Greg "Fossil man" Raymer also won his entry at the Poker Stars online card room.
In December 2003 it was reported to online poker revenues stood at around $34m (€ 40m) per month and were rising by 27% per month. By March 2005, at peak times just about 100,000 people were playing for real money at the various card rooms with a like number playing free games.
In October 2004, Sporting bet Plc, the world’s major publicly traded online gaming company (SBT.L), announced the gaining of ParadisePoker.com, one of the online poker industry's first and biggest card rooms. The acquisition marked the first time an online card room was owned by a civic company. Since then, more than a few other card room parent companies have gone public.
In June 2005, Party Gaming, the parent corporation of the major online card room, went public on the London Stock Exchange, achieving a first public offering market value in excess of $8 billion dollars. At the time of the IPO, ninety-two percent of Party Gaming's profits came from poker operations.