The beginner's guide to Online Gambling

Posted on 25 Jan 2006 at 17:35

 

Gallery

It's a fair bet that you'll have noticed the recent explosion in online gambling. Paul Cheung takes you through the basics and gives you some tips to make sure you back a winner if you fancy a flutter on the net

Walk into any department store and you'll probably notice multicoloured ceramic poker chip sets and green-baize tables on display. Switch on Match of the Day and chances are the panel will be discussing the odds on Chelsea winning their next match. Step into the street and you're sure to pass a massive billboard advertising the latest online casino. It's pretty fair to say that gambling is hot property and even more so in its online incarnation.

Less than two years ago you could have counted the number of online gaming sites on the fingers of one hand; now there are hundreds, with more launching all the time. To make it easy for you to get to grips with the online gambling scene, we've broken it into its three main parts: poker, online casinos, and sports betting. We should make it clear that the American dollar is the currency of choice across all poker and casino sites, so make sure that you take that into account before depositing any money.

Online poker

Typing 'online poker rooms' into the Yahoo! search engine reveals over 15 million hits, but we'd warn against just clicking on a random site. As with many internet operations, there are inevitably some rogue traders out there. The question is, how do you sort the genuine from the fraudsters and make a discerning choice?

Funnily enough, your first stop shouldn't be an online poker room at all. Your initial port of call should be either www.pokerlistings.com or www.pokerpulse.com. These sites are like the Yellow Pages of poker and a directory enquiries service rolled into one: they provide substantial and up-to-the-minute listings. Here you'll find reviews of the most popular poker sites, which ones are offering the biggest prize pools and when the next tournament is going to start. You can even pose questions on the forum to see which sites other people recommend. If you cross-reference PokerListings and PokerPulse, you'll notice that the same names come up time and time again. PartyPoker, Paradise Poker and InterPoker are the real giants of the poker world and you can't go far wrong if you choose to play with one of them.

Let's say, for example, that you pick InterPoker, on the strength of its PokerListings review, which points to good functionality and 'soft' games (that is, for beginner players). First you have to download the InterPoker software. At 292KB, it should take only a few seconds to download. This will give you access to the InterPoker poker lobby and you may think you're only seconds away from making your millions.

Wait, though, because poker can take many forms and just diving straight into a $100 (around £57) Omaha Hi/Lo Multi-Table tournament is a recipe for disaster. All forms of poker contain elements of luck, but the first step to being a consistent winner is having a firm grasp of the rules. We recommend you try and master the most popular form of the game, Texas Hold 'Em, before venturing into more exotic forms of the game such as Omaha Hi/Lo and Five-card Stud. If you're a 'fish' - a newbie - you can get up to speed on the rules at www.interpoker.com/strategy. On whatever site you choose to play, there are tutorials and tips to help.