It wouldn’t be long before online poker became more user friendly, and for real money. Planet Poker made its online debut in 1998.
Created by Randy Blumer, and endorsed by popular poker player Mike Caro, Planet Poker would be the start of a truly phenomenal trend.
Although small in size at its creation, the fact that you could play for real money, without the complexity and risk of meeting up in real life, was a massive draw for players.
Pj’s and poker was an enticing concept.
Bugs perplexed Planet Poker and the degree was restricted, as you could just play Texas Hold’em.Soon a new heavy weight would enter the ring.
Paradise Poker would very rapidly take over as king pin in the online poker world. It was a smoother system with more options such as Omaha and 7 card stud.
Paradise Poker’s popularity is surrounded in conspiracy though. On the day of its launch, Planet Poker just so happened to have a massive and long lasting outage. They are pulling people towards Paradise Poker for their poker needs.
Media coverage at the time chalks it up to merely a coincidence but one cannot help but notice the suspicions behind it.
Notwithstanding how or why Paradise Poker got mainstream, it wouldn’t keep going long. Before long, various contenders would join the fight.
Models include: Ultimate Bet, Party Poker and Poker Stars.
Expanding Online Presence
Party Poker was a notable adversary at this time. They had aggressive advertising, including commercials, and would remain on top until 2006 when they would leave the market.
Party Poker was the first site to introduce a million dollar (US$) guaranteed online poker tournament, launched in 2002.
In the early days of online poker, before 2003, it was difficult to find a full room.
You would spend a lot of time waiting in order to start a game.
Poker sites needed a way to counteract this delay, so companies would hire what is known as, prop players. The name itself gives a pretty good hint as to what they do.
They would be paid to play in real money games.
Once the table was full and active, they would leave.
They will start the process all over again in another empty room.
This helped to keep the ball rolling and maintain player interest. No one wants to sit around waiting for hours on end just to play a hand.
In addition to prop players, there was also another method used to keep around the clock games going, which was more of a lure affect.
Poker sites would have a number of free to play games rolling at any given time, and they would hype the launch date of a real-money tournament during these free to play games.
Hopefully, and often, a high enough percentage would make the switch, unable to resist the attraction of making real money.
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