Article by Dave Saltonstall

The poker game that has proven to be the most popular when played at an online casino is Texas Hold’em. Unsurprisingly Texas Hold’em originated in Texas. In fact it was born in a little town called Robstown back in the early 1900s. The game did not become popular in the casinos of Las Vegas for other sixty or so years.

It made its first appearance in Las Vegas at the Golden Nugget Casino in the early sixties. Back then the Golden Nugget was nothing like it is now. Now it is a huge luxurious hotel casino with over 2000 rooms and penthouse suites. Back then it was only relatively small. It was considered to be lower class casino than most of its contemporaries and was located in downtown Las Vegas rather than on The Strip. In fact it was just about the oldest casino in town having been built back in 1946.

The game was an exclusive feature of the Golden Nugget for quite a number of years until it was eventually taken up by another famous casino, The Dunes. The Dunes was located on The Strip and was quite popular. Back then The Dunes was almost certainly run by the Mafia. The casino was demolished in 1994 and was replaced by the magnificent and resplendent Bellagio casino with it dancing fountains and Son et Luminaire displays.

Texas Hold’em made its first tournament appearance in 1969 in what is now known as the World Series of Poker. Nnowadays ,000 no-limit Texas Hold’em is the main feature of the tournament.

1979 saw the first documentation of the game in a publication called Super System. This was a book that detailed strategies for a variety of poker variants. The author was Doyle Brunson, a professional poker player of the time who claimed to have made over ,000,000 playing poker. The book went on to become a kind of poker players’ bible.

With that publication Texas Hold’em had finally arrived and its popularity increased over the following years. The game found its way to Europe during the 1980s. The turn of the century saw an explosion of interest in the game as it became the most popular form of poker to be played on line. Its popularity continues to increase to this day.

About the Author

Dave Saltonstall has played in the WSOP (World Series of Poker) and regularly enjoys a game of online poker is a key contributor to the http://www.betfred.com/poker/ website!

Just about fifteen years ago trading card games hit the world and ever since it has remained on top with many of the younger generation people in this world. Since their invention, trading card games have swept across the world, creating fans at every turn. The diversity of the games is the biggest draw, bringing in throngs of people to their ranks every year. Clubs and tournaments have sprung up and draw thousands through the doors with the promise of a long and grueling match.

The forerunner of this phenomenon is the ever popular Magic the Gathering. Based largely on the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game, Magic was a sure fire hit for the young people of the world. Combing all they loved about D and D, but in a much easier to use and play format, Magic worked its magic with the masses and became an overnight success. People flocked to the stores to pick up the cards as they were brought out. Gaggles of teens grouped together to play the game and stores that dealt with nothing more than Magic cards started to open to hungry consumers. The cards themselves are sold like baseball cards, in small packs or huge sets. Everyone is interested in building their deck to the maximum power.

Trading card games are still very popular to this day. Magic still remains a force in the market and enjoys the run of the land. They come out with a new set of cards each year that continue to go up in price over time. Huge collections have been amassed, some of which have values that exceed any other card game currently known.

The basic premise of a trading card game is simple. The cards are made up of character cards, objects and powers. Each person selects the deck they will play with and the cards are shuffled at random before play begins. The rest of the game is played similar to may other card games, where cards are laid out and the winner is stronger. The rounds continue until one or the other has been defeated. The strategy is based solely on the cards that each player has in a deck. For the most part the players depend on the strength of individual cards in the deck to become the winner, but in the end there is a lot of luck that comes into play. Because the cards are drawn at random no player knows what will come next to keep it all very fair.

Since the beginning which is commonly attributed to Magic, more and more companies have joined the ranks. The ever popular Pokemon was instantly famous with the even younger groups. Less violent than Magic, Pokemon seemed to appeal to the more family friendly crowd. Some of the cards became very rare in the early goings but can now be had for a few dollars or less. This is the case with a lot of the different trading card games as well. Many of them started out with a lot of popularity and because of some clever manufacturing, a lot of rare cards. This causes the price for the whole game to go up and therefore allows the game to enjoy a thriving secondary market as a whole.

 

The Birth of Online Gambling

Part 1.

By Calida Gaming.com

September 2008

 

Online Casino’s have been around since 1994, in the early days it would be fair to say it was a bit like the wild west.

Whilst there were certainly many good operators out there, there were almost as many bad ones. Many people in these pioneer days saw it as an opportunity to take peoples money and simply close up shop and run away.

This presented problems for all those in the industry that were trying to drag it towards credibility.

Being one of those original Pioneers we had to find a way to convince the public that we were of substance and were trustworthy, simply stating this in the “about us” section is not really good enough. Our approach was to use our history as our bond, having operated bricks and mortar Betting shops in the UK for many years and myself being a fourth generation Bookmaker.

This approach was also used by all the main high street Betting shop operators and proved a very solid foundation to build credibility.

This was however just the start, it was fine to be able to prove that you were from a trustworthy and credible background but we knew that everything we did from that day on would be how people judged us.

Of the big hurdles to get over, one of the biggest was the matter of software. Now it may seem simple 14 years later but in the early days, even up to 2000 it was not. Could we walk into PC World and ask for the Online Gaming Software section? No obviously we could not. So the next choice is to buy a custom built package or build one yourself.

The existing custom built packages at the time were very basic and as the industry was still so new, they were biased very much towards the designers opinion of what the online gaming public would want. This ranged from software designed by professional punters that was so complicated it was unusable to the general public, to software that had been designed solely by computer developers that required a Degree in computer science to place a single bet.

 

So many of us took the path of building our own, sounds simple right? Wrong.

In a planning session with gaming staff and IT developers it does sound easy and we all fell into the trap of believing what was said when developers promised the world. The simple truth however is that with the best intentions the technology simply was not ready for the revolution we were attempting to make. It seems so obvious now in hindsight but that’s the way it always is.

So, we have a credible name, good solid plans of what we want and software that almost does it all. This in itself was quite an achievement in those days, add to this the fact that we were also taking the company public with an IPO on the London AIM market and that we made it through with our sanity mostly in tact is a miracle.

The IPO was scrapped as the Dot Com bubble burst right above our heads. Although we were frustrated by all the work that had gone into the IPO, the endless projections, the road shows with institutional investors, what it did for us was force us to have a very clear well planned out strategy.

Once the development is done and the software live (this was the first time I had heard the term “software version release 1”) we thought the hard work was over and it would be plain sailing from now on. Software is a funny creature that has a life all of its own, happily working 100% and then simply deciding it does not like Tuesdays so wont play today. Sitting here writing this and indeed chatting with other people from this time period it seems such an innocent problem, we are reputable people, our intentions are good and pure, we made our own software so we could give our customer the things we think he would want but its not quite working today…..

This was in fact a MONUMENTAL problem. You see Mr Joe Public who has somehow managed to find our site, in itself an achievement in the days of slow dial up Internet accounts and walled gardens such as AOL may have managed to sign up for an account, may have managed to get as far as making a deposit and now his tip of the week is about to run at Ascot and guess what?? He cannot log in.

Had this been in a UK Betting shop, we would at the very least be able to have a face to face conversation, our staff in the shops would always have a very good working relationship with all our customers. They would get an explanation about whatever technical fault had caused their problem and because they knew our staff and us, had a physical connection with us that would be that.

Online operations are somewhat different, how many people have been frustrated that they have an issue and all they can find is an email submission form??

How did we solve this??

This article is part of a series written to show today’s players where the industry came from and what day to day issues today’s online Casino, Bingo and Poker operators face.

For further parts of this story by the Author please visit  Calida Gaming