We've established that online poker is brilliant. You can play it whenever you want, at whatever level, in the comfort of your home. You can even play it in your underpants, and according to official statistics about 10 per cent of people do. But one question remains...
It's reasonable to assume that if you're going to give your credit card details to someone on the internet you want to know they're on the up. And we're going to do our best to convince you that - so long as you stick to the list of reputable sites at the end of this chapter - your money is safe. Despite extremely vocal claims in online poker forums, online poker isn't rigged. Play good poker and you'll win. Play bad poker and you'll end up losing money. And it's the bad poker players - funnily enough - who are the most vocal critics of online sites.
Poker is an established business. All reputable sites use the very latest encryption software to keep all your credit card details safe. You have to provide the number, the name on the card, your address and the security number (the three digits on the back of your card) before you can put any money in your account. And putting money into an online poker account is as safe as buying from any of the massive e-tailers, like Amazon.
The big online poker sites have been going for years and make a huge amount of money by taking a cut from all cash games and charging for tournaments. If you see an online tournament advertised as a $10 + $1 game, the $1 is the fee charged by the online operator.
It's extremely rare if you're with a reputable service provider but, if you are unfortunate enough to lose your connection mid-game, most online sites give you about 30 seconds to reconnect. So, if your PC shuts down for no reason, or your connection fails, just reconnect to the internet, fire up your poker software and you should be automatically taken back into your game. However, if your downtime is considerable and you're playing in a cash game, you'll be taken out of the game temporarily (and you'll be considered all-in for any chips you were betting in that current hand). Your seat will be held for a few minutes, but if you don't reconnect you'll be taken off the table.
If you're playing in a tournament, you'll still be dealt cards and you'll still have to post blinds, but if there's a bet against you, your cards will be folded. If the blinds are high you won't last long, but if it's in early stages of a tournament it'll take a long time for you to be completely blinded away. Funnily enough, it is possible to make it into the money if your connection's down and you've got enough chips to make it past the bubble.
We're not saying that cheating doesn't happen. It does, but it's extremely rare and the sites are doing everything possible to ensure that it's stamped out almost immediately. Report any suspicious behaviour; just click on the Help or Contact button and you'll immediately be able to fire off a message to the operator. In particular, look out for...
It's a form of cheating - as old as the game itself - where two or more players co-operate to give themselves an advntage over other players. In live games, players collude through coded signals and gestures. You might also collude by dumping chips on to a colleague to strengthen his stack, putting him at an advantage in a big-money tournament. It's something that's impossible to completely eradicate from the game, but vigilance can keep it to a minimum.
In an online poker game, where no one can see what you're doing, it's a lot easier to collude. Unscrupulous players can easily communicate their cards with other players on the phone, or through chat applications like MSN. They might even be sitting in the same room and playing on a network. But while it's easier to collude online, the nature of online poker means that it's much easier to catch and deal with anyone doing it. Online poker sites have access to every habd ever played, and they employ dedicated staff and use the very latest software to monitor and track suspicious patterns. If collusion is proven, accounts can be suspended, money frozen and even refunded to players who have been cheated out of their cash. Again, report any suspicious behaviour to the operator.
The beauty of poker is that it is a matching of minds, a game of skill between humans, not a game like BlackJack that pits you against the house advantage. But can you be sure that you're playing against real people? Poker bots are computer programs that play for you, using artificial intelligence to make decisions. In theory, this means that they can play a solid game, without deviating from solid poker strategy for 24hrs a day. They'll never draw against the odds, and they'll never get tired or click the wrong button by mistake.
Terrifying? Not really. The current levels of artificial intelligence just aren't good enough to cope with the complexities of poker, especially the human elements such as bluffing. Online poker sites still take poker bots seriously, though, and actively track anyone attempting to use a bot, and they'll freeze accounts of anyone found to be using one.