What is online poker?

What is online poker?

First, let's go over what it's not.

Online poker is not "video poker", the game you see in casinos that looks like a slot machine.

Online poker is not something that you play by yourself. Although you may be sitting at home all alone, you're connected to a game server via the internet. Every online poker game has at least two real people, while most have eight to ten. The larger tournaments have several thousand people all playing at once (at different tables, of course).

When you play online poker, you aren't playing against the "house". You don't make bets with the poker site. You make bets with the other people playing poker. The house (that is, the poker site) makes money by collecting a small fraction of each pot before awarding it to the winner. The house never gambles at all. This is very different from an "online casino", where the player and the casino are natural enemies. In the case of online poker, the house is a neutral third party.

Here's how it works. The ingredients are:

the poker web site - where you can find information about the games hosted by the site, the rules, promotions, upcoming events, and the place from which you download the poker client.

the poker client - the program you install on your own PC. It has a graphical display of the poker game showing the players and cards and has buttons you use to bet and fold. When you run it, it connects to the poker game server.

the poker game server - the central computer that hosts the poker games. The game server runs a computer program that acts as a dealer (shuffling and dealing cards and awarding pots), floorman (helping you find a seat) and cashier (handling chips and money). The game server ensures that all rules are followed correctly. The game server is the hub for all communication with and between the players.

the players - the people who are playing poker with each other. Each person is sitting at their own computer, running their own copy of the poker client, connected to the poker game server via the internet.

You can play online poker for play money or real money. When you play for play money, you are just playing for "play chips" or "free chips". When you first sign up you start out with some number of play chips. If you lose them all, you can simply ask for more, though some sites limit how often you can get more play chips. When you play for real money, you are betting real dollars, euros or pounds. Real money stakes range from tiny (in some games you can bet as little as a penny) to large (in other games the minimum bet could be several hundred dollars). The sites make their profit by collecting "rake" from the real money pots, but they are happy to host the play money games as a promotional expense.

Where real money is involved, the obvious first question is whether the site is trustworthy. Before you can play real money games, you have to deposit money with the site. How do you know you will ever be able to get that money back? Some sites have established track records of 5 years or more and have earned the confidence of thousands of players. But others have failed and gone out of business without returning the players' money. We'll show you how to choose a site with a solid reputation so that when it comes time to cash out you won't have any worries.