Fantastic Online Poker 1

The recent explosion of online poker has seen poker companies listing on the stock exchange and everyone trying to get a piece of the action. There are actually now hundreds of poker sites on the internet available but at the end of the day all of them offer exactly the same thing - the possibility to gamble some of our hard earned money against faceless opponents, sitting miles away in some other a component of the globe. In our underwear if we so wish.

The adrenalin rush of sweating it out on the turn of a card with a small fortune at stake is now reachable without the need of to leave the house. We don't have to travel, go out into the cold, be worried about dress code or possibly a taxi home. We can play any time of the day or night - there is no closing time. We don't have to miss Corry or Enders. As long as there is money in our poker account we can play till our hearts content.

But that's the problem is not it - how do we keep money in our account. The first few times of playing we are feeling our way in, learning the rules. But it appears so fast and furious. We are always being told to hurry up by the computer - "Hang on I'm thinking! He's probably got an ace but I am not really sure. Give me a second to think! Oh I fold then."

But as time goes on, and we start to be worried about how many Neteller transfers we appear to be making, we gradually get the hang of it. We win several hands; we start to work out our opponents; we actually come off a table in profit!

We up our stakes, we start playing the bigger tables - no limit even. We enter a tourney or two - even get to the final table. Can't quite win however. But we are not feed for the sharks anymore. We have not made a deposit for days now and we're still playing!

But this really is all determined by winning - at least now and then. Poker is all well and good as we win, but once we have to keep clicking that 'Deposit Funds' button it becomes rather tiresome. If only there was some way to ensure that funds are deposited into our account without the credit card taking the hit.

Well actually there is and it is amazing how many people are presently playing poker (right at this very second even) who carry out not know about Rakeback. It appears to be a little known fact that many of the poker companies, who are desperately vying for our business, actually offer money back just for playing.

Well it's time to spread the excellent excellent online poker news.

The profit that the poker companies make is called 'The Rake'. They take a portion of the pot of every game which is played. We do not even notice it's gone. But it builds up into quite a little pile of profit for said company. The term Rakeback actually comes from the method used in casinos where the dealer would use his chip rake to drag a couple of chips in to a bucket...just to cover their costs. And make the odd million.

Online poker companies do the exact same thing, albeit electronically. And being an incentive for us to sign up with their site, they offer referral incentives, within the type of Rakeback, through various online Rakeback sites. This really is exactly what it says on the tin - we get a bit of 'The Rake' given back to us. Thus, for every single hand that we play, the poker site takes their share and gives us just a little back over the affiliated Rakeback site. If you play enough poker this could add up to a tidy little sum and come the end of the month, our poker account receives a good little injection of money.

It does not matter whether we have won or lost - we have played. And that is all we have to do to get our Rakeback. If we play enough it can fund our poker for the entire month. We can even lose but still not be out of pocket. Imagine that.