Casino Games - Poker Recognition - Part One

Poker is considered to be born in the USA in the second half of the 20th century. For a long time poker has been only one of existing gambling's but everything changed in 1970. The owner of a legendary casino "Binion's Horseshoe" in Las Vegas, a great fun of poker and an eminent player Benni Binion and his son Jack Binion organized in their casino a tournament between the most known US players. In the tournament took part six players who have been competing during seven days in gambling of different kinds of poker. A champion was determined by voting and that was Johnny Moss. This tournament provoked a poker boom among people and attracted more audience. Many people expressed their will to take part in the next similar tournament.

Binion took decision to continue organizing such tournaments and united them under the name World Series of Poker (WSOP). Every year the number of WSOP participants grew in geometric progression. If in 1971 the number of participants made 14 persons, in 2004 it made 1700, in 2005 - 5800, in 2006 - 8900 and in 2007 - over 6 300.

WSOP is the greatest tournament but besides that a great number of the other attractive and popular tournaments took place in Paris, London, Vienna, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Moscow etc.

Poker was given a powerful incentive in development and popularization in the 90s of the past century with development of the internet network and appearance of on-line poker rooms. Poker turned to be the most pertinent and the most interesting gamble for millions of users all over the world. Poker fever in Internet is still going on. Mostly thanks to internet a number of people willing to compete in "live" tournaments, clubs is growing by leaps and bounds. And now nobody is surprised by the fact that the winners of prestigious poker competitions are skillful casino players experienced in online poker room games.

Today poker is no more a gambling, it turned into a popular socially important phenomenon. Thus, according to the data of the American Gambling Association in 2005 the number of people willing to play poker made 35% of the US population aging from 21 to 39, 18% of the US population aging from 40 to 49, 15% of the US population aging from 50 to 64, 11% of the US population aging over 65. In conformity with the results of the polls by the Association for most of this people poker is more than a gamble, it turned into a way of communication, a nice leisure.

Poker became largely covered by many medias. Popularity of the gamble in the modern world lets co-exist a dozen specialized magazines dedicated exclusively to poker, online poker rooms, poker players, poker strategies. The most popular of them are the magazines "Poker Europa", "Card Player", "Poker Magazine", "Bluff", "Woman Poker Player" etc. The last few years were marked by a burst of poker. Poker turned to be extremely entertaining sport gamble. Many sport channels pay considerable part of time and give prime-time to great poker tournaments.

This brings up a question: why poker and not any other gamble, for instance roulette? The answer is evident. Correct poker playing is based not on a blind success, poker is a competition of intellectuals, competition of logics, psychology, ability to sort possible actions, to count consequences, a particular zest is considered to be some psychological methods (semi-bluff, bluff etc.).

Arthur Prudent is the developer of casino bonuses and promotions, web site covering gambling news, features reviews on Casinos, Poker rooms, bingos, Sports Betting bonuses promotions and more.

Casino Games - Poker Recognition - Part Two

A complex nature of poker generated in poker community, a discussion on what dominates in this casino game: skills or success. Most of the people believe that poker is a casino game the outcome of which depends on skills of a casino player and only a small probability is given to a chance. This thesis is confirmed by facts. For instance, legendary poker players have won WSOP poker championship for many times independently on a number of participants. Thus, Johnny Moss has triply become a poker champion (in 1970, 1971 and 1974), a three-time poker champion is the greatest player of the 20th century Stew Ungar, he won WSOP in 1980, 1981 and 1997. Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chen have twice tried on Gold WSOP winner bracelets. In poker as in any other kind of sports there is an elite of poker players who win great tournaments every year or take prize places. Just sport compound of poker let make poker player rating, every year the first places are occupied there by the poker the casino and poker rooms community.

As to the opinion of the states on the nature of poker, here everything's more complicated and sophisticated. As a rule, in many countries the authorities don't make any difference between gambling games and poker. However such a fuddy-duddy approach has recently tried to break the poker community. Poker and casino games fans unite themselves in associations, public entities trying to prove to the officials that poker can not be put together with roulette or slot machines.

Sometimes the authorities themselves understand that. For instance, in the United States poker can be played not only in casinos but in special card rooms the activity of which is allowed only on the territory of the states where gambling business is prohibited. Thus, on the territory of California successfully work 91 card rooms, in Florida 16, in Washington 112, the state of Montana counts even 493 card rooms. The income of American card rooms (not including casinos) in 2006 made more than 1 milliard dollars. The activity of these organizations are severely controlled by the government. For instance, the legislation of Florida fully regulates the rate of the stakes in poker. This year in June got effect the law according to which the stakes in limited poker games are allowed to be increased from 2 to 5 dollars, in unlimited Texas Hold'em maximum allowed rate of buy-in makes 100 dollars.

However these states are predominantly exceptions. Unfortunately poker for most of American officials is a gamble. For most of them but not for everybody. In June 2007 a congressman Robert Wexler introduced to the House of representatives of the USA a draft law named "Skill Game Protection Act". According to this draft law such games as poker, bridge, chess should not fall within the scope of the law because on the author's mind they are games where skills dominate over a chance. A very serious political force acting on the side of poker is a senator Alfonse D'Amato who together with the organization "Poker Players Alliance" fights for a fair and objective attitude of the authorities to the favourite game.

But if in the USA the process of poker recognition as a skill game has just begun in some other countries poker scored off the conservatism of the officials.

Arthur Prudent is the developer of best casino bonuses, web site covering gambling news, features reviews on Casinos, Poker rooms, bingos, Sports Betting bonuses promotions and more.