Online poker, i.e. the game of poker played over the Internet, has contributed in large measure to an extensive increase in the number of poker players worldwide. This is attributed to the fact that both game providers and players benefit from the online venue. Online providers have much smaller overhead cost s of running a poker room that brick and mortar venues. On the other hand, online players, also from geographically disparate locations, have a wide range of user-friendly rooms to choose from, as well as the possibility to learn the basics of the game in poker freerolls. There are, however, still a lot of other substantial differences between online poker gaming and conventional, in-person gaming.
One obvious difference, often liable to suspicion, is the identity of dealer. In offline poker rooms, dealers are human beings, while in online venues they are represented by computer programs. As a consequence, reliability and other trust issues with regard to online gambling as such are frequently questioned, mostly concerning the random order of cards. Therefore, many online poker providers lease or buy their software from well-known companies like Playtech, Microgaming etc. whose hallmarks in themselves guarantee reliability with respect to the random generator used.
Another change in the online version of poker is the rate of play. This results directly from the different identity of dealer in brick and mortar, respectively online casinos. A human cannot collect, shuffle and deal the cards after every hand as quickly as a computer application. Moreover, the user-friendly environment of online poker offers extra features for the player such as “auto-action” buttons (select your action before your turn) which further speed up the rhythm of the game. Offline poker averages about thirty, while the online version sixty to eighty hands per hour.
This large variance in rate of play has led to another effect on online poker gaming. While in offline venues it is practically impossible to play multiple tables at once, most of the online casinos allow this, as different windows on a computer or portable device may serve as different poker tables, allowing anyone to easily switch among them. Some players take this opportunity in the hope to increase their earnings.
Tracking play represents another difference with conventional gaming. "Hand Histories" text files, tracking every action made by the gamblers during each hand, have slowly become requirements in online poker rooms. Many online players use third-party software applications to process these history files in order to obtain some kind of summary report of the game, which might be useful for further analysis and survey.
Despite the above mentioned advantages of online poker over traditional gaming, there are some points to which online venues may be more vulnerable than brick and mortar poker rooms or casinos. It's about the certain types of fraud, which is common in the whole online gambling community. Frauds, according to the perpetrators, are of two kinds: from the part of players and from the part of game providers. The most common fraud among players is considered collusion, but it is not a rare phenomenon the same player playing with multiple users, either. From the part of the online poker room or casino, frauds might manifest themselves mostly in false random generators and “bots” – computer programs disguised as humans – with exact knowledge of the others' cards.
In point of view of legality, online poker shows many similarities with online casino gambling. Albeit it is prohibited in the USA, many other countries, mostly around the Caribbean Sea and above all the United Kingdom recognize it as legal, but reserve the right for its regulation.
Article supplied by TrueOnlinePokerGambling.com