A Comprehensive Guide to Online Poker Rooms
When it comes to poker, most people who play it online started their journey in the offline world. There are multiple reasons for this. One of them is that when you play poker in real life it’s much easier to know what you’re getting yourself into. The risk of a brick and mortar casino stealing your money or scamming you is pretty much non-existent. The rules and security in brick and mortar casinos are clear, and it’s exceedingly difficult for people to pull off any malicious shenanigans when it comes to live poker. We also prepare for you poker sites comparison.
Online poker comes with a bit more risk, though this is not the case with many online poker providers. In fact, some online poker operators are even more trustworthy than their live poker counterparts! There’s a stigma around the online world, and especially the online gambling and gaming community that makes a lot of people suspicious about the whole enterprise. Because of this, many people choose not to opt in and they thus miss out on a good experience and opportunity to potentially win big at the virtual felt.
In this guide we’re going to discuss online poker rooms, what they really are, and how you can venture into this world without any risks involved. We’ll also mention some current events in the online poker sphere so that you can get more immersed and test your mettle in the entire world of online poker.
How it all works
The first thing you probably want to know when you start your first game of online poker is what you’re getting yourself into as far as legalities are concerned. When it comes to live poker, it’s simple. You abide by the poker rules as well as the laws of the jurisdiction in which the casino or poker room is physically located.
Since you play online poker from the comfort of your home, you are likely wondering how you can know which set of rules you are playing by. Physical location does play a part in the answer to that question, but not in a way that you might think. The location of the operators’ servers determines the laws that the online casinos and poker rooms will abide by when offering their services. The most popular places to host online poker servers are remote islands with relatively lax laws, which give the operators more flexibility to turn a bigger profit and avoid anti-gambling laws and regulations.
This shouldn’t really worry you too much since, even with this being the case, the loss of a license usually spells the end for an online gaming operator. Though you should definitely still keep a watchful eye over who licenses the online poker room that you’re playing in.
So, after you’ve picked your online establishment where you’ll be playing your poker games, you’re going to have to register an account. This is all pretty straightforward and it doesn’t really need much explaining as literally every online poker room is focused on getting you to sign up, and they make the process as easy as it can get.
After you’ve created an account, you’re usually greeted with some kind of welcome bonus. You should pay close attention to the requirements needed for these bonuses to be available to you, since most online poker rooms won’t let you keep those bonuses if you don’t deposit a certain amount of money or play enough hands first. It makes sense, since if this were not the case they would basically just be handing out free money to people.
Playing in online poker rooms
You’re ready to finally get into your first online poker room and you’re wondering what game you should choose. First of all, you should know that there is a myriad of possibilities in the world of online poker. There are certainly many more possibilities there than when you’re playing live poker games, since the internet isn’t that restricted by real-estate and there are usually far more other players present.
Pretty much any type of poker that you’ve played in real life, you’ll be able to play online as well. The most popular versions of poker that you can play are Texas Hold‘em, Omaha, and Stud, but there are many other poker variants to explore and play as well. Moreover, you’ll be able to play for stakes far lower than you’ll find in brick and mortar rooms, even down to $0.01/$0.02, all the way up to the highest limits.
The current state of online poker rooms
When it comes to online poker today, it’s important to know which sites are reputable and what you’re getting yourself into. There are many sites out there that, quite frankly, don’t offer players a safe experience. We can’t stress this enough: DON’T PLAY ON UNREGULATED SITES. To that effect we’ve distinguished between state-regulated and offshore-regulated sites, as far as licensing. That much is clear when reading articles like our everygame poker review.
The U.S. online poker scene is nowhere near as flourishing as before Black Friday, but it is slowly recovering, with new legislation being put into place on a state level. Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have enacted legislation allowing people to play online poker legally within their borders, and games have been running in the former three for a few years now. Interstate play has just started, with Michigan and Pennsylvania likely to join soon.
