Online poker rooms permit poker players to play poker and enter poker tournaments over the internet from home. A dramatic increase in the number of poker players worldwide can substantially be attributed to the popularity and increase of online poker rooms. Online poker rooms tend to be viewed as more player-friendly than their land-based counterparts. For example, the software which facilitates the gameplay may often prompt players when it is their turn to act. Online poker rooms also allow the players to play for very low stakes (from as low as 1p) when compared to the stakes of land-based poker rooms.

Games

Online poker rooms offer many variations of poker so as to cater for all preferences. Following are some of the typical poker variations that might be found in an online poker room.

In addition to the list above, some poker rooms offer very rare games. PokerRoom, for instance - which is one of the pioneers of online poker - offers Chinese Poker. Many poker rooms also offer Blackjack, which is another card game whose popularity is currently shooting through the roof.

Tournaments

Tournaments are a regular and very popular feature of online poker rooms. Entrance into the tournaments usually requires a small entry fee which each of the players must submit to the house for hosting the tournament. A buy-in is also usually necessary, which is a set amount of money which must be paid on top of the entry fee. The prize pools won in online poker tournaments can vary but usually consist of all the players' buy-ins and re-buys, the latter referring to the purchase of additional chips during a tournament.

Online poker room tournaments come in many forms. A "free-roll", for example, is a sponsored tournament where no buy-in is required and the prizes are usually provided by the poker rooms themselves. Free-rolls are therefore very enticing for beginners and do well in attracting new players. A "satellite" (or "qualifier") is a tournament whose prize pool involves gaining entry to a larger tournament. The most popular online satellite poker tournament prizes include entrance tickets to the major live poker events, such as the European Poker Tour (EPT), World Series of Poker (WSOP), World Poker Tour (WPT) and Party Poker's European World Series of Poker (EWSOP). Satellites are therefore very enticing to the more advanced players. A "guaranteed" is a tournament where a certain amount is guaranteed as prize pool, regardless of how many players buy-in to the tournament. Guaranteed tournaments can experience overlay when not enough players join and a part of the prize pool is covered by the poker room.

Bonuses and Other Promotions

Online poker rooms employ various methods to reward their faithful members and entice new members to sign up and play. The most common way is to offer deposit bonuses, where players are given a bonus code to enter when depositing money into their accounts. The bonus code adds either a percentage or a set amount of chips to the value of thier deposits. It should be made clear that these are not up-front payments: the bonus is released gradually in accordance with the number of raked hands that are played or as poker points are collected (explained below). In addition, several online poker rooms offer VIP programmes to reward regular players, and additional bonuses are afforded to players who wish to top up their accounts. These are known as "reload bonuses".

Most online poker rooms also offer a poker points system, whereby points are collected by a player each time s/he sits and plays at a cash table or tournament. The poker points can usually be used to buy-in to tournaments or pay tournament entry fees. Some poker rooms even allow the poker points to be exchanged for real chips.

Software and Currencies

It is important to note that all of the major software companies through which poker rooms procure their software are American. As such, the software are usually tailored to the US currency. The poker rooms accept deposits in multiple currencies, but the deposits are exchanged to US Dollars with which gameplay occurs. When a withdrawal is requested, the US Dollars are either exchanged to the player's original currency at the same exchange rate as the initial exchange, or exchanged at the current exchange rate. In some instances, poker rooms do not exchange withdrawals to US Dollars at all, but mail the withdrawal to the player in the form of a US Dollar cheque. This is not the case with any poker rooms presented on Casino Bonus Directory.

Some online poker rooms do facilitate gameplay in Pound Sterling, in which case all the confusion inherent to currency exchanges are eliminated. Such poker rooms include InterPoker and Playboy Poker.

Fraud and Security Measures

Although fraudulent activities do take place in online poker rooms, most reputable venues have certain security measures in place which keep such activities to a minimum. One common fraudulent activity in land-based poker rooms is collusion between players, and online poker venues can be very vulnerable to such behaviours. However, collusion detection abilities are usually available at online poker rooms that do not exist in land-based poker rooms. For example, online poker room security employees can observe player hand histories and thus identify possible fraudulent patterns. Players' IP addresses can also be checked so as to ensure that players at the same household or at known open proxy servers are not playing on the same table.

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