What year did online poker start?

Can’t make it to the casino? No poker night coming up? You can still play online poker anywhere you are, at anytime, just by accessing the internet!

Online poker dates back to the early 1990’s. The first online poker game was introduced by IRC Poker, but no real money was exchanged at that time. Texas Hold ’em, Omaha hold ’em and even tournaments were available to play through this online poker site. This gave players an opportunity to play and practice without the risk of losing money. The site even attracted some poker experts, which helped raise the success of IRC. Even though there was no monetary prize for winning, players still received fake chips, and some users collected upwards of one million chips! IRC Poker grew in popularity and set the stage for later online poker sites.

Planet Poker was the first to allow the opportunity to play poker for money over the internet. On January 1st, 1998 the first poker game for money was played online. The first game played was Texas Hold ’em. Soon the website had a group of regulars visiting the site and business started to soar. After gaining some popularity, tournaments began lasting longer, sometimes through the night and into the following day because there were so many users available to play. Other sites soon emerged offering various poker games online for real monetary payouts, including Paradise Poker and Party Poker.

The early online pokers sites were riddled with technical issues, sometimes taking up to several days to resolve. Some of these issues were with processing credit cards, losing internet connection or having a poor connection and not having the knowledge yet to update the software to make needed improvements. Online poker evolved with the internet and many improvements have been made since then in how and what is available to play.

There have been over 500 different online poker gaming sites since its birth in the 1990’s, some of which still operate today.