Online poker started in IRC channels via text commmands in the mid 1990's. These games were just friendly games and were not played for money. Soon, techies developed graphical user interfaces (GUI) for these games and the games became more accessible. As the Internet grew in popularity and technology improved the potential for a real money card room increased. Considering that the first real money online casino was opened by Microgaming in 1996 it was only a matter of time before the right person decided to take the risk and enter the poker market.
In 1998, Planet Poker was founded by Randy Blumer, a Canadian entrepreneur form Alberta. An engineer and amateur poker player, he had taken early retirement from the Canadian military to create the online poker world. Planet Poker was the first operation to offer real money poker games online. It was instantly successful, thanks to pre-launch advertising in CardPlayer magazine. It was only a few months before games ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Planet Poker was a pioneer, but the actual usability of their product was fairly low. The software was buggy and the connections often failed. The site had outages lasting many days at a time. Users complained, but at the time there was no other option. The free market was practically inviting a competitor to swoop in and take those customers away from Planet Poker.
In 1999 another Canadian operation opened under the name of Paradise Poker. Paradise Poker had smoothed out technical issues prior to launching and almost overnight took over the majority of the market share. It wasn't long before Paradise Poker had over 1000 players on at the same time during peak hours. It was later sold by its anonymous owners to Sportingbet plc for 20 million pounds. Today things are much different in the online poker world but both rooms still exist. Planet Poker has not offered real money games since 2006 due to government regulation in the United States. Paradise Poker is now an International Poker Network (Boss Media) skin, meaning it is more of a marketing vehicle and brand than it is a poker room.
This initial competition between the first two sites is what set of the gold rush of online poker. This led to the rise of todays giants in the online poker world, Pokerstars, Party Poker and Full Tilt as well as the successes and failures of hundreds of other sites.
In 1998, Planet Poker was founded by Randy Blumer, a Canadian entrepreneur form Alberta. An engineer and amateur poker player, he had taken early retirement from the Canadian military to create the online poker world. Planet Poker was the first operation to offer real money poker games online. It was instantly successful, thanks to pre-launch advertising in CardPlayer magazine. It was only a few months before games ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Planet Poker was a pioneer, but the actual usability of their product was fairly low. The software was buggy and the connections often failed. The site had outages lasting many days at a time. Users complained, but at the time there was no other option. The free market was practically inviting a competitor to swoop in and take those customers away from Planet Poker.
In 1999 another Canadian operation opened under the name of Paradise Poker. Paradise Poker had smoothed out technical issues prior to launching and almost overnight took over the majority of the market share. It wasn't long before Paradise Poker had over 1000 players on at the same time during peak hours. It was later sold by its anonymous owners to Sportingbet plc for 20 million pounds. Today things are much different in the online poker world but both rooms still exist. Planet Poker has not offered real money games since 2006 due to government regulation in the United States. Paradise Poker is now an International Poker Network (Boss Media) skin, meaning it is more of a marketing vehicle and brand than it is a poker room.
This initial competition between the first two sites is what set of the gold rush of online poker. This led to the rise of todays giants in the online poker world, Pokerstars, Party Poker and Full Tilt as well as the successes and failures of hundreds of other sites.