An Introduction to Online Poker

The first online poker room was opened on January the 1st, 1998 under the name Planet Poker. The room was founded by Randy Blummer and Mike Caro, who wrote the book Caro’s Book of Poker Tells.

Although Planet Poker was launched at the start of 1998, it did not hit any massive heights within the first few weeks. There was only a handful of poker players that joined the room, and it was not until February when a cash game ran all night. Planet Poker had numerous technical issues, buffering problems, connection problems and issues with the server.

Since then, online poker has developed massively, with many variants of the game available. Players can also enjoy several video poker and casino poker games online.

The World Series of Poker

One of the most astounding stories in poker history occurred at the 2003 World Series of Poker tournament. The main event was won by Chris Moneymaker, who was an accountant at the time with no background of being a professional poker player.

Chris Moneymaker went heads-up against the favourite and Poker legend, Sammy Farha. In the heads-up duel, Chris managed to beat Sammy, to go on to win the $2.5 million, which was the largest prize of the event at the time. His story is incredible, given that his starting seat was in the 839th position.

Little did Chris know; his feat became a massive turning point for poker players around the world. The idea of qualifying with a small buy-in to go on to win a substantial amount was mouth-watering. This led to many online poker rooms attracting many new players.

High Stakes Poker

In 2006, High Stakes Poker became widespread and contributed to the growing popularity of the table game. High Stakes Poker was a television show that showed poker players play high stakes matches that went on for over 24 hours. This attracted many noteworthy names such as Sammy Farha, Eli Elezra, Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein and Jennifer Harman.

High Stakes Poker was edited to last 13 episodes per season displaying many quick high stakes games. It expanded on the idea of playing entire tournaments by showing many smaller games to the public.

The most popular game at the time was Texas Hold’em, which hand incredibly high buy-ins worth $100,000 and the blind were set at $400/$800. High Stakes Poker was massively approved of by the public and went on to show 8 seasons from 2006 until 2020.

The POTRIPPER Scandal

One of the strangest incidents to occur in poker history was at online poker sites. Absolute Poker and UltimateBet – two poker sites – were caught up in this scandal when a player – going by the name of POTRIPPER – was able to see player’s IP addresses and third-party viewers who were following the game.

Using this information, POTRIPPER went on to beat many players and cheat their way to a nice wad of cash. To this day, it has still not been revealed whether POTRIPPER was ever caught or the identity of the cheat.

Absolute Poker suffered from POTRIPPER’s profit. The company ended up paying back $1.6 million to players that were cheated by the scandal user.

The Rise of Isildur1

A happy surprise was in 2009 when a player – going under the name of Isildur1 – sparked popular interest. Isildur1 was playing in many popular poker rooms, such as Absolute Poker, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. The player was known for taking on anyone. He had a large bankroll and even came out on top against Phil Ivey, Partik Antonius and Tom Dwan (all professional poker players).

When Isildur1 appeared on the scene, it was inevitable that people started to ask questions. There was a time when everyone believed that the player was a youngster who was making a name for themselves. Fast forward a few months, the identity of Isidul1 was revealed.

Viktor Blom, a high stakes poker player who had signed with PokerStars was revealed to be Isildur1. He had a long poker career and played in many Full Tilt Poker rooms before using the Isildur1 username. Thus, this was no young poker player at all, instead, he was a seasoned professional.

April 11, 2011 - darkest days in poker history

One of the darkest days in poker history was on April 11th, 2011. On that day, the FBI seized all online poker operations such as PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and UltimateBet in the US. The Justice Department had claimed that illegal gambling online is a federal crime.

This saw many poker players unable to claim any of their winnings and potentially facing criminal charges. Many players turned away from online poker, as they were scared of breaking any rules and losing their livelihood as well.

This lasted for 10 days before PokerStars gave access back to their players to withdraw their funds. However, not all sites were that lucky. Absolute Poker and Full Tilt Poker both went under, with many employees losing their jobs and players losing their funds.

PokerStars bought out Full Tilt Poker and did their part to pay back players – although this took quite some time. Nowadays, there are many players that still do not play poker online given their unfortunate history in 2011.

The WSOP $1,000,000 Buy-In Tournament

One of the biggest events in poker history happened in 2012, when the World Series of Poker launched the Big One event with a $1,000,000 buy-in. The event was started by Guy Laliberte, who was the founder of One Drop. One Drop was a charity that was founded to supply clean drinking water around the globe, with a certain amount of the buy-ins contributing to the One Drop foundation.

The tournament itself was broadcast on live TV to millions of WSOP fans but only had a limited number of seats. Many famous poker legends, such as Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negranu, Brian Rast and Antonio Esfrandiari were all keen to join. In fact, Antonio Esfrandiari actually won the tournament, pocketing a substantial $18.3 million.

The event was hugely popular and allowed players to buy-in and even re-enter (if they lost early on) for $50,000, $100,000 or even $250,000. This attracted many more players to go full professional as the thought of winning seven-figure numbers by using poker skills appeared increasingly attractive.

Online Poker in the US

Although the events of April 11th, 2011, are a massive dent in online poker history, there are many players that are willing to give online poker another chance. In 2013, Nevada became the first state in the United States to recognize online poker rooms as a legal way of playing. The only snag was that only players from the state were able to sit at a poker room.

Online poker before 2011 had a larger number of players. It will still take time for the online poker industry to reach the same heights as it did pre-2011. However, more and more states in the United States are beginning to pave the door open for online gambling to become regulated.

Closing Remarks

Online poker still attracts many players and is slowly clawing its way back to its pre-2011 heights. However, there is certainly no way of denying that the reputation of the industry was damaged by the events of that year.

Unsurprisingly, due to the pandemic, online poker has been on the up ever since 2020. The total lockdown across most of the world forced people to adjust to relying on the online market. This combined with more US states regulating online gambling means that the future is bright for the online poker community.