Online Casino Poker Soaring to New Heights

4 July 2005

The popularity of poker has been skyrocketing all throughout the past year. The effects of poker´s assent have been resonating throughout the gambling industry. There is a huge demand for poker chips, poker books, and other poker accessories. The industry that has been affected the most by people´s fascination with poker is the online casino industry. Online casinos have benefited tremendously from incorporating online poker. Online casino players have been flocking online poker rooms all over the web, gambling in record numbers.

Out of all games offered by online casino websites, poker is probably the most complicated to master. So what makes poker so well-liked? First of all, there are numerous variations of the game of poker, and some are easier then others. Most online casino poker players focus on a certain type of poker and try to master it. Because the overwhelming majority of online casinos feature online poker, you don´t have to settle for playing out of your comfort zone. You can pick and choose which type of poker you wish to play, and the online casino at which you wish to play it.

What also makes the game of online casino poker so attractive is the fact that there are so many people who play it all across the web. With a bigger player pool, the chances of finding players who are comparatively weaker increase substantially. One of the secrets to winning at online casino poker is to pick a table that has at least 2-3 of these so called poker rookies, or “patsies” if you will. Another reason why poker appeals to so many people is rooted in its heritage. There is a certain mystic about the game of poker. Some of the most interesting figures in history played the game. For instance, the famous outlaw from the old west called “Billy the Kid”, who is featured in numerous books and movies, also used to play this game.

Poker Online Casinos Get Enhanced

The rise in online casino gambling is on an upward trend. And out of all the online casinos you can find on the net, some of the most popular ones are poker casinos. Poker itself is perhaps the most popular of all the online casino games. It is found at virtually every major online casino and there are so many different variations of the game, played both online and offline, that it´s hard to keep count. One new software developer is investing time and money to help improve and enhance the overall quality and experience of the poker online casinos.

CryptoLogic Inc, a well known online casino software developer has announced that it is launching WagerLogic Limited, a subsidiary that will focus on poker room online casinos. They have already released new enhancements exclusive for their poker software. Poker players who enjoy online poker casinos will definitely notice the difference now that these enhancements have been made. Features such as high speed targeted Lightning poker games and new lineup of lower-limit games that offer players a choice of games based on their playing ability are just a few of the new features to look out for.

CryptoLogic's President and CEO Lewis Rose commented on the recent changes made for WagerLogic poker online casinos: “For CryptoLogic, it's about delivering market-targeted products to our customers for greater player choice, entertainment and revenue potential. Whether you're an amateur or a poker aficionado, CryptoLogic software offers the game you want, at the speed you want, in multi-currencies - and around the clock.” Online casino players can enjoy new features such as for free poker gaming, a choice of speed you can play at, high stakes poker games, fast-paced poker to tournaments, and much more.

UK Online Casino Fares Poorly on Stock Exchange

The online casino business seems to be on a roll, but not all online casinos are successful when it comes to the value of their shares. Recently, one British online casino disappointed investors when the company´s shares took a dive on the stock exchange during its second day of trading. While most online casinos seem to be operating a profitable business, this UK internet poker site in particular wasn´t showing a whole lot of promise on the stock market.

While online poker casinos have become extremely popular in the past few years, they are not unsusceptible to financial downturns. The rise in popularity of poker at the online casino can be attributed to the games exposure in several different areas such as television and the internet. From celebrity games to tournaments, poker fever is reaching a fever pitch. This explains the popularity of the most widely recognized gambling game at the online casino.

One of the biggest online casinos that recently took a bit of a dive on the stock market, raised £123m in London on Wednesday. Jag Mundi, who is the head of this online casino corporate finance advisers commented that: “We have been caught up in the cross-fire over the company's float. There's a lot of talk over whether their float will succeed or fail or whether they will have to cut their price again.”

Poker nation: Texas Hold 'Em is the hottest game around

RW Bishop, a 43-year-old Lynnwood man who remodels houses, officiates high-school basketball games in his spare time and used to teach Sunday school, surveys the two cards in his hand, then slowly but confidently pushes all his chips forward.

"I'm all in," he says, repeating a phrase that may come to define this decade the way "groovy" did the '60s and "greed is good" the '80s.

It's about 11:15 p.m. on a Tuesday at Parker's Casino in Shoreline, and Bishop is locked in a duel with Jack Carroll, an auto dealer, in a game of Texas Hold 'Em, the most popular version of what is quickly becoming one of America's most popular activities — poker.

To the winner goes either $10,000 or a spot in the main event of the World Series of Poker (and its $10,000 entry fee).

Carroll looks at his two cards, rubs them on the table a few times, then pushes his smaller stack of chips in.

Bishop flips over his cards — a pair of 6s. Carroll flips his — a jack and an ace.

The dealer turns over three cards, or what is called "the flop," a term no longer associated solely with Vlade Divac and Manu Ginobili.

The middle of the three cards unveiled is another 6, giving Bishop an almost unbeatable hand.

As the reality sets in, Bishop happily announces that he's taking the trip, meaning a month from now he will play in the biggest poker game in the land.

Not bad for a guy who says that 18 months ago he'd never played the game.

Bishop won't be alone in Las Vegas.

As many as 7,000 people may enter the main event of the World Series of Poker, more than double that of a year ago and about eight times that of two years ago — as good of an indicator as any of the incredible surge in popularity of poker. Industry estimates are that 50 to 60 million Americans play poker at least once a month.

Many will be relative newcomers to the game such as Bishop, most of whom don't fit the old-time stereotype of the scruffy, cigar-chomping gambler, but who instead have been intrigued by the increasing visibility and availability of the game.

"I'd played blackjack and craps," he says. "But I'd literally never played poker before."

Bishop says a friend talked him into playing in a tournament in January 2004. They bought each other some books for Christmas and agreed that they'd split whatever they won. Bishop took first prize — earning $10,000 — and has been hooked ever since. He set a limit that if he lost $1,000 in a year he'd quit, but that hasn't happened yet.

Going back centuries

Poker of one sort or another has been around for centuries. The first versions appear to have originated in France and Germany. Many of the most common varieties of poker played today are thought to have been popularized by soldiers during the Civil War. "Community card" games such as Texas Hold 'Em date to the 1920s.

In Hold 'Em, players are dealt two cards face down. Then five community cards are dealt — the first three all at once, called "the flop," then two more dealt individually — "the turn" and "the river" — with betting following each deal. The player with the best five-card hand wins the pot.

In the signature move of No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em, a player can decide to bet all his money — by announcing he's going "all in" — at any time after the first two cards are dealt.

The drama of the "all in" bet is part of the reason No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em has been the main event of the World Series of Poker since 1970.

But it has only been in recent years that poker has achieved not only a full-fledged popularity but also respectability and credibility.

"There are people who used to think it was a smoke-filled, back-corner game," Carroll says. "But it isn't anymore."

What legitimized poker is the same thing that has legitimized almost everything else in our culture the past few decades — television.

When it was a fledgling network a few decades ago and aired just about anything, ESPN gave poker a shot as well. But it didn't take then, because nobody could tell what cards the players were holding.

That changed thanks to the invention a few years ago of what became known as the "hole card cam" — tiny cameras embedded in the table that allow viewers to see what cards each player has been dealt. The invention was the brainchild of Henry Orenstein, an 81-year-old Nazi concentration camp survivor, who thought the televised game needed a boost out of boredom.

Suddenly, the viewing audience could play along with the players themselves, second-guessing whether to raise, fold, check or go "all in."

"There's a huge difference in the popularity of poker today from even five years ago," says Adrian Hanauer, who owns the Seattle Sounders soccer team and plays poker regularly in big-time tournaments in Las Vegas and elsewhere. "And I think it can be narrowed to one very clear thing, and that's TV."

ESPN's coverage of the World Series of Poker — which includes more than 40 poker tournaments leading up to the main event — draws ratings comparable to Major League Baseball and the NBA. Considering the network doesn't have to pay the same kinds of rights fees it does for those sports, the Series ranks as one of its biggest moneymakers. The Travel Channel, FSN, Bravo and the Game Show Network also telecast poker regularly, making it almost impossible to switch on the tube and not find a game on.

Television coverage not only made the game fun to watch — especially when all the hands where not much happens were edited out — but also showed it to be a game just about anybody can theoretically master.

The past two winners of the main event — Chris Moneymaker and Greg "Fossilman" Raymer — each had day jobs (Moneymaker was an accountant, Raymer a corporate patent attorney), but beat the pro superstars and now are superstars themselves.

Many cite Moneymaker's victory — he qualified for the WSOP through a $40 satellite tournament online and ended up taking home $2.5 million — as a turning point in the game's popularity.

"When Chris Moneymaker won, that let everybody know that anybody could win this thing," says Daniel Negreanu, one of a growing number of full-time players who is becoming famous as well as rich. Negreanu has won more than $6 million playing poker.

Suddenly, people everywhere became convinced that riches and fame could await them, too, if they could simply figure out how to play Texas Hold 'Em.

Dreams of riches

In the Seattle area, many players head to tournaments like the one at Parker's last week. In all, 110 players paid an entry fee of $275 for a chance to win $10,000 or a seat in the WSOP. Many were essentially rookies, such as Andy Meltebeke, a coffee-stand owner from Mill Creek. He says he began playing in tournaments seven months ago, becoming interested "after watching it on TV like everybody else."

He bought a couple books — about the only thing growing as quickly as the number of players interested in poker are the number of tomes instructing people how to play it — did well in a tournament "and got the fever," he says. He made it to the final table Tuesday at Parker's.

Many newcomers turn to online poker sites, a trend that frightens gambling addiction counselors who wonder if television's legitimization of poker isn't masking the obvious danger — for every dollar won there has to be a dollar lost by someone else.

But Negreanu wonders what's the difference between poker and playing the stock market or putting a bunch of money in a business.

"Everything's a gamble," he says.

Those who play professionally say handling money is one of the prime skills that has to be mastered for success. Negreanu says coping with the emotional swings of good luck and bad luck is something that separates the pros from everyone else.

He says those who do it for a living have to be highly disciplined. Negreanu doesn't drink when he plays and sets prearranged limits for how long he will gamble, reasoning he loses his mental sharpness after awhile.

But Negreanu's is the kind of tale that is draws fortune-seekers to the game.

He grew up in Toronto, where he sometimes skipped school to play pool for money before gravitating to poker.

Negreanu moved to Vegas when he was 23, quickly becoming one of the game's biggest winners due in part to his uncanny ability to read other players, to guess what they might have in their hands — a trait he says is a must for any successful player.

"One day I woke up and said, 'I guess this is what I do for a living,' " he says.

Now he is a one-man poker conglomerate with a multimedia career that also includes video games and a syndicated column (The Seattle Times carries it on Saturdays). All that pays him enough to live comfortably even if he never wins another tournament.

Like an increasing number of players, Negreanu is becoming as famous as one of the basketball or hockey players whose jerseys he often wears while competing.

"When televised poker became hot and got great ratings, and that's just been the last three years or so, that's when things started to really change," Negreanu says. "No longer was I able to just go to a tournament and not have to sign autographs and take pictures and things like that."

History of Poker Chips

Gaming chips have been made from a wide range of materials in an almost infinite variety of styles since the birth of gambling and the need to keep track of winnings. The most common material types used today in the manufacture of modern poker chips are plastic, clay composite, and acrylic composite. Clay chips, the oldest of the bunch, have been manufactured in America since the late 1800s.

Back in the 1800's, poker players seemed to use any small valuable object imaginable. Early poker players sometimes used jagged gold pieces as well as chips – primarily made of wood and clay. By the 20th century, poker chip designs began to play a greater prominence, and the smooth edges of older chips gave way to chips with engraved slits to keep them neatly stacked together. Most recently, affordable plastic poker chips appeared in the 1940s.

There is no doubt that poker has grown steadily in popularity ever since its origin in the 1800s. With the explosive growth of online gaming and specialty TV shows, public interest in poker has accelerated faster than ever before. Many people are first introduced to poker by TV shows such as Bravo’s “Celebrity Poker Showdown” or the Travel Channel’s “World Poker Tour,” and many will play their first hands online.

Despite online poker’s rise, nothing replaces the feeling of shuffling heavy clay poker chips in your hand, throwing chips into the center of a casino table, or stacking tall piles of chips after showing a victorious hand.

Sage boss hits jackpot in poker float bonanza

MICHAEL JACKSON, head of the Sage software company, is to collect a salary of about £500,000 to be non- executive chairman of a major gaming group, the online poker group, and will be awarded shares worth £1m in the company if it presses ahead with a planned flotation.
Jackson, whose appointment was announced just over two weeks ago, will become one of the best-paid non-executives in the country.


Brian Larcombe, former chief executive of 3i, Europe’s largest venture-capital group, will receive a salary of about £250,000 as non-executive deputy chairman.

The size and structure of the packages has stunned the City. One source said: “This is going to look like they have their noses in the trough.”

The share award to Jackson has especially surprised people. He will collect his £500,000 chairman’s salary even if the gaming goup does not go ahead with a flotation. But if it does, the company will probably go straight into the FTSE 100, and some estimates suggest it could be valued at more than £5 billion.

A spokesman for the group, said: “For a business of this size and success, there can be absolutely no compromise on the quality of the non-executive directors.”

The company thinks that Jackson and Larcombe are among the few prominent executives with the right combination of FTSE experience, knowledge of high-growth businesses and the IT sector.

It sought to play down suggestions that the big pay packages were “danger money” paid because of the regulatory concerns over the gaming group and other online gaming and betting companies.

Online sports betting is illegal in America, and there is a question mark over the legal status of online poker and other casino games. This is a particular problem for the group because the vast bulk of its business comes from America.

Gaming chief logs on...

ONE of the leading figures in the traditional gaming industry, Lord Leonard Steinberg, is to embrace the internet side of the business by becoming chairman of Tradal, an online poker group that is planning a £550m flotation. Steinberg, 68, founder and chairman of Stanley Leisure, the casino operator, will become non-executive chairman of Tradal.

Last month, The Sunday Times revealed that Tradal, which runs a poker site, had appointed Numis, the stockbroker, to work on a London stock-market listing. The flotation is expected to take place next month.

Steinberg, a working peer and fundraiser for the Conservative party, is one of the most respected figures in the gambling industry. He started out in the 1950s taking bets in his family’s Belfast milk bar and expanded Stanley into one of the industry’s biggest players with a chain of betting shops and casinos.

Last week, Stanley sold its bookmaking arm to rival William Hill for £504m, leaving it to focus on its upmarket Mayfair casinos, which include Crockfords, and a chain of regional casinos.

Tradal is likely to be valued at a discount to existing quoted online gambling stocks such as Sportingbet when it makes its market debut. One source with knowledge of the float plans said it would be valued competitively. “It is being priced to go,” said the source.

Several online gambling businesses are hoping to float on the London stock market. Numis is known to be working with at least one other. It has been appointed to advise Fireone, which runs an online payment service for betting sites.