With the recent admiration of poker in America, many Internet poker rooms have began to grow in popularity. These sites do not only provide a safe and easy means of entertainment, but they offer a place to win real money playing poker. Whether you are a novice or a pro, these sites can be useful to you and your game. Several benefits of playing online are listed below.

1) You don’t have to leave your house to play.

2) The large number of tables at all of these sites provide for great game selection. Over the Internet you can play anywhere from 5¢/10¢ holdem all the way up to $50/$100 holdem. All these sites also offer play money tables, where you can learn and perfect your play for free.

3) The action over the Internet is quicker than in live games. You can see and play many more hands an hour over the Internet than at a casino or in your local home game. All these sites also offer you the ability to play at more than one table at the same. This means that as your game improves, you can “round out” money quicker and more efficiently. This also enables you to play in an online tournament, while still playing in a regular game. We love this option.

4) You can’t tip the dealers. In most live games, often players feel pressure to tips the dealers. This is understandable because dealers work mostly for tips. But online, you can’t tip! Tipping the dealer always cuts into profits, period. Even worse is when you’re having a bad night, you’re down money, and when you finally do win a pot, you have to toss a chip to the dealer. This is money lost, gone forever, and many players often view this as an additional rake.

5) Smaller rakes. Yes, the rake is smaller on the Internet. These sites don’t have to pay dealers and they offer many more hands an hour. Both these facts enable them to offer lower rakes than casinos and still make money. Simply put, lower rakes equal greater profits.

It seems like this list can go on forever, but we believe that we have covered the main reasons for playing poker online.

We have recommended a few online poker rooms, like Full Tilt Online Poker and PokerStar.net in our poker room review. These sites are some of the best online today. They all have solid reputations and fast payouts. The security on these sites is superb, and if you think you can somehow cheat one of these sites, forget it!

Opening an account with a poker site is different than a casino or sportsbook. Most sites require you to download their software, so that you many connect to their server and play. (This is partially for security reasons and partially for the quality of the graphics.) Once you have downloaded the software, it is very easy to open an account. You can fund your account by depositing funds through an online bank, cash, check, or Western Union.

See you at the tables!