Online poker is the game of poker played via the internet. It's been partly answerable for a dramatic increase in the range of poker players worldwide. In 2005, revenues from online poker were estimated at US$ 200 million monthly.

Traditional (or "brick and mortar", B&M, live) venues for playing poker, for example casinos 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. Even though the rake, or time charge, of traditional casinos is usually high, the opportunity costs of running a poker room are even higher. Local casinos often make a lot more money by removing poker rooms and adding more slot machines.

Online venues, by contrast, are dramatically cheaper while they have much smaller overhead costs. By way of example, adding another table won't take up valuable space like it would for a local casino. Online poker rooms also enable the players to play for low stakes (as low as 1˘) and often offer poker freeroll tournaments (where there's no entry fee), attracting beginners.

Online venues could possibly be more vulnerable to certain kinds of fraud, especially collusion between players. In contrast, they have collusion detection abilities that do not exist in brick and mortar casinos. For instance, online poker room security employees can look at the hand history 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 addresses in order to prevent players at the exact same household or at known open proxy servers from playing on the exact same tables.

Free poker online was played as early as the late 1990s within the form of IRC poker. Shortly thereafter Planet Poker was the very first online cardroom to offer real money games. Author Mike Caro was one of the founders as well as the "face" of Planet Poker.

The main 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 particular tournament on PokerStars that Chris Moneymaker won his admission to the 2003 World Series of Poker. He went on to win the main event causing shock in the poker world. The 2004 World Series featured 3 times as many players than in 2003. At least four players in the WSOP final table won their entry through an online cardroom. Like Moneymaker, 2004 winner Greg "Fossilman" Raymer also won his entry at the PokerStars online cardroom.

To play online poker it is important to download software and install it on your computer. It's graphics is normally great, though those running on java-based programs are never that good. It is also better to set a budget when planning to play on-line poker; it will help you avoid unnecessary expenses. Try and learn money management; this really is an excellent online poker gambling agency way of developing your skills as a on-line poker player.

Finally do not forget that to play poker on-line it's important to be smart. Let your common sense prevail. You should think with mind and not your cash. Just take it easy as well as have fun.