Poker is just one of the most interesting and widely played games today. Poker may be played either within the casinos or on online venues.

Online Poker definitely refers to the game played on the internet. It’s been answerable for a remarkable rise in the numbers of poker players worldwide.

In line with the research group River City some 1.5 million people play poker online regularly for real money and that the number is growing by 100,000 a month.

Online poker is just not something that you play by yourself. Even though you may be sitting at home all alone, you are connected to a game server via the internet. Every Online Poker Game has at least two real people, while most have 8 to 10. The larger tournaments have several thousand people all playing at once (at different tables, of-course).

When you play Online Poker, you are not playing against the “house”. You do not make bets with the poker site. You make bets with another people playing poker. The home (that’s, 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 really is completely different from an “online casino”, where the player as well as the casino are natural enemies. In the example of online poker, the home is a neutral third party.

Here’s how it works. The ingredients are:

the poker web page – in which you can find information regarding the games hosted by the site, the guidelines, promotions, upcoming events, and also 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 it has buttons you use to bet and fold. Whenever 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 more.. money). The game server guarantees that all rules are followed correctly. The game server will be 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 net.