A Short History of Online Poker
A major online casino software supplier, developed its first operational online casino in 1994. With this, the trend quickly caught on, and became a growing business ever since.
It was not until 1998 that the first online poker room was established. Planet Poker, is credited as the first online poker room, and enjoyed the status as the sole online poker firm for a short period of time. While Planet Poker has since been overtaken by many other online poker rooms, the initial rake structure it set, 5% up to a $3 max rake and that standard has been mirrored by other poker rooms. So while the industry has drastically changed since 1998, the rake structure has remained fairly constant. Some things never change.
Shortly after the development of Planet Poker, other online poker rooms soon entered the fray. Paradise Poker was established in 1999, using many of the same online casino strategies as Planet Poker. During this initial period of entry, the infamous case of Poker Spot occurred. Poker Spot was an online poker firm founded by Dutch Boyd, a successful poker player.
Poker Spot was launched in May 2000. In September of that year, it would become the first online poker room to offer an online poker tournament. With this new game being established, there needed to be a sure way that players would be paid their winnings. And so, with that came the emergence of e-cash. Basically, e-cash is an intermediary cashing system that connects the players with the online casino, allowing a transfer of funds. Neteller has become the dominant funds transfer service for the online poker industry. Neteller has appeal for both users and online poker firms. For users, it allows them to deposit at a poker room without a credit card or wire transfer, and it also allows the user to generally receive quicker withdrawals. The online poker rooms like Neteller because it decreases fraud and has relatively modest fees for them.
Online Poker steadily gained popularity and the industry continued to grow. Online poker exploded in 2004. The increasing popularity of online poker and the "Moneymaker effect" resulted in even more play at the virtual poker tables. Because of this, the industry's revenues more than tripled.
Now it seems that the major online poker firms may soon become public companies. Currently, other online poker firms are considering becoming publicly traded firms. This will make it easier to find a trustworthy poker room with less worry about fraudulent online poker sites.
