For instance, you can get up to $1000 (or equivalent in Euros or Sterling) when you play at the Bet365 poker rooms. This is a 200% initial bonus. You can get up to $1,000 if you make a deposit of $500 into your account. You can deposit a minimum of $10 (you will be able to receive $20 in bonus money).

You will receive this bonus in $10 installments. Once a player has earned 1,000 Merit Points, they will receive their first $10 bonus. This $10 will automatically be credited to the account. You will receive $10 for every 1,000 Merit Points and you will have 60 days from depositing to claim as much of the bonus money as you can.

One of the things that I like about Bet365 Poker is that you can play at multiple tables at the same time. These windows will alert you when you need to make an action. I always find it easiest to play the Sit n Go tournaments at the lower stakes like $10/$20 or so. You can usually place in the top 3 or in the money if you are patient and wait for donks to bust out.

The one thing that I would like to see at Bet365 is a mobile poker room. Bet365 already has a great mobile betting app for the iPhone, iPad or Android and they have recently added a mobile casino with a series of their most popular casino games. The sports betting app has cool features such as In-Play betting while a match is being played. You will find a wide range of sports to bet on and you can even watch many of these events at Bet365. The mobile casino has a selection of 16 casino games including favourites such as Roulette, Blackjack and Slots.

The mobile poker room can’t be too far away. The one thing that makes this more difficult is that you need to interact with other players as opposed to placing a wager or playing against the casino. This can either be done in one of two ways:

1) You make the mobile software compatible to the poker rooms that are online.

2) You make the mobile software separate and keep the mobile players in their own rooms.

The advantage of using the first example is that you can slowly introduce players to mobile poker and they will be able to see the convenience of being able to play these games while they are on the go. The downside is that it would be pretty difficult to merge the two platforms easily and would takes some effort to do so.

The advantage of the second example is that you don’t have to worry about having problems between mobile and online platforms. The disadvantage of making it separate is that you will not have many mobile players at the tables at first and it may be difficult to get this niche going.

• Playing cards were invented in China in 1120 AD. They were introduced to Europe in the 1300’s. The Jack used to be called the Knave in the middle ages. It was changed to the Jack because they started to put the first letter on the corners of the card and the King already took up the K.
• The origins of poker are unknown. There is a theory that the word may derive from the German verb ‘Pochen,’ which means to ‘bluff or brag.’
• Dead man’s hands are aces and eights. It received that name because it was the hand that Wild Bill Hickock had when he was murdered in 1876. The accepted version is that the 5 card hand was two black Aces and two black 8′s with the fifth card being the Queen of Clubs.
• The suits in the cards are due to French influence. Each suit represents the four classes of men. Spades represent the royalty. Hearts represent the clergy. Diamonds represent the merchants and Clubs represent the peasants.
• When Columbus came to the U.S shores in 1492, his men picked leaves from the trees and drew images on them in order to play cards.
• There are 2,598,960 potential 5 card poker hands with 52 cards.
• Each king in a deck of cards represents a king from history:
  Spades: King David.
  Hearts: Charlemagne.
  Diamonds: Julius Caesar
  Clubs: Alexander the Great
• There are 2 ‘one-eyed’ Jacks in a deck of cards. The Jack of hearts and the Jack of spades. The King of Diamonds is the only other one-eyed face card. This is because they are drawn in profile. The King of Hearts is called the “Suicide King” because he appears to be stabbing himself in the head.
• In 1937, a fifth suit was added to a deck of playing cards. This never took off as people did not want to have to buy new cards.
• There are beliefs that a deck of playing cards have significant meanings:
  The 52 cards in the deck represent the 52 weeks of the year.
  The four suits represent the four seasons; spring, summer, autumn and winter.
  The 13 cards per suit represent the 13 phases of the lunar cycle.
  If you add up all of the cards in a deck, you will get 364 days of the year plus one joker makes a total of 365.
• Las Vegas Casinos are not legally obligated to pay off their gambling debts.
• Unlike modern day poker, in early century poker the kings were the highest card in their suit and the ace was the lowest.
• The biggest pot ever played on online poker was worth $1.3 million.

Why not try your luck at poker with PokerStars.co.uk. Simply register your details and whatever amount of money you deposit; it will be doubled when you use PokerStars Bonus Codes.

So what happened?!

Why did they all of a sudden decide to pull the plug on some of the top poker sites that allowed US players to play and leave this little reminder to all of us?

Really? That’s a confusing message. It makes you sound like play a game of skill is a felony! All they do is host a platform which people can get together and play for money. They aren’t the “House” because they aren’t playing against the players. These sites are just a very profitable service; to the tune of several billions of dollars a year.

What’s even more confusing to me is the timing of the whole event. Just last week, the District of Columbia passed a law making online poker legal to play inside of Washington D.C. So I have one thing to say the US Government – Make up your mind! Is online poker good or bad? Decide! You can’t talk from both sides of your mouth. “It’s illegal in this context but not in this particular case” That doesn’t work for me.

So why did they decide to slam the hammer down on April 15th?

Here’s a Story …

That’s where all of the fun begins. The following story will definitely be coming to a theater near you sometime in the upcoming years. It all begins with the US Senate passing the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006″. This was a law that was tacked onto the back of a US Port Security bill that needed to pass through Congress. Definitely leaves a lot of room for some shady back dealings with lobbyists backing some major players (like the NFL and Horse Racing). This law actually has in the writing that NFL Fantasy Football and Horse Racing are legal online in the United States.

Many of the major players in the game back then (Party Poker, Neteller, etc.) paid Billions in fines for the new made up law and backed out of the US market without challenging the government’s authority. Other players in the online poker market decided to ignore this law, considering online poker to be a “game of skill” and not a “game of chance” and therefore it didn’t apply to “Internet Gambling”.

The game of chance is any bet that you make that you do not directly have control of. This includes betting on a sports team winning, playing blackjack against the house or betting on a spin from the slot machine. The game of skill did not directly involve only chance, since a professional would clearly beat a novice most of the time.

This is where the slick 20-something Australian enters the scene. He was responsible for setting up the system to allow the online poker giants like Full Tilt and PokerStars to subvert this law by lying about the product that they were selling. Everything was going fine until he became greedy and got caught steeling millions of dollars from Full Tilt Poker. Being the jilted lover in this situation, Full Tilt decided to give this man up to the US government when he came to Las Vegas last year.

Instead of doing hard time for bank fraud and money laundering, he turned the tables and described to the government in detail how Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet got around the laws prohibiting banks from allowing online gambling transactions. This was the trigger for the chaos that ensued last Friday. All four of the sites’ domains were confiscated and the US government is trying to get close to $10 billion dollars when it is all said and done.

Why did the US government wait until now to pull this off? There will be a lot of speculation, and I will add to it. It just so happens that Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars were considering a partnership with some of the major casino players in Las Vegas. Since all of this went down on Friday, both casinos that were considering these deals have now backed out.

The US government will eventually find a way to make online poker legal; but for now, they found a way to punish those that did not follow the rules, however convoluted and idiotic they are. Eventually, I believe that you will see the re-emergence of Party Poker as the top dog when this all gets settled in the next couple of years.

Will I get my money back from Full Tilt/PokerStars?

I have been through this before with online casinos and Neteller back in 2006. If things happen in a similar way, it should take between 2 and 3 months for you to get your money back. So you may have to be patient, but don’t worry about it.

So where can I find a place to play online if I’m from the US?

I would start by taking a look at the two most previous posts on this site: Carbon Poker and Aced.com Poker. Both of them are part of the same poker network called the Merge Poker Network.

There are two other poker networks that are still up and running as well:

The Yatahay Poker Network – The largest poker room on this network is Doyle’s Room. You will find that Doyle’s Room offers lots of poker bonuses.

The Cake Poker Network – Cake Poker is the largest poker room for a poker network which features it’s name. One of the interesting features about Cake Poker is that you can play on your mobile phone if you have a Windows Mobile Phone.

These things are what have caused Carbon Poker to become such a good choice for players. When a player chooses to play at Carbon Poker they know that they are going to be afforded the opportunity to get in on a lot of amazing bonuses.

Different Bonuses at Carbon Poker

One of the bonuses a player can expect to receive when they play at Carbon Poker is the 100% Initial Deposit Bonus. This bonus is the sites way of welcoming their new players and giving them the opportunity to receive as much as $600 extra dollars into their account. New players can always use a little help when it comes to getting extra cash into their account and this is a great way for them to get quite a bit of cash.

One more bonus Carbon Poker players will want to pay attention to is the Money Tree bonus. This bonus offers Carbon Poker players the chance to win a lot of cash. All a player has to do in order to try for this bonus is to make sure that they keep playing those ring games, SnG’s, and MTT’s. Players who earn ten VIP points or more on ten different days will be able to qualify. Everything over that will simply increase the player’s chances of winning. Carbon Poker will automatically track the player’s points so all they have to concern themselves with is enjoying all of those great games and tournaments.

Most people like to share good news with their friends. They will already want to tell all of their friends about the great online poker site they have been spending time on. Carbon Poker offers a great referral bonus that will give players even more incentive to tell everyone they know about the site.

This bonus will allow players to get free cash and all they have to do is spread the word about how great of a site carbon Poker is and convince their friends to sign up and enjoy everything the site has to offer. Players will be able to earn as much as $75 just for offering Carbon Poker the email of their friends and once their friends make an initial deposit the player will receive their bonus.

Royal Flush Bonus

Players at Carbon Poker will also want to check out the Royal Flush Bonus. This bonus allows a player to have even more reasons for wanting to see a royal flush appear in front of them. If a player wins at Carbon Poker with a royal flush, they will find themselves winning 100 times the amount of the big blind. It is important for players to know that this bonus is only offered for the real money Texas Holdem games at Carbon Poker.

Carbon Poker has a lot of bonuses and any player there will want to make sure they go through the bonus section of the site so they won’t miss out on a great opportunity. By keeping track of what the current bonuses are at Carbon Poker a player will be sure that they are getting in on all of them they can and this can really help them to see the money in their account add up. This is a great online poker site and the fact that it even has so many generous bonuses is just one more reason for any online player to consider it.

Want to find out more about Carbon Poker? Take a look at this review of Carbon poker room.

Another reason why online poker is so exciting is due to the bonuses online players can receive at most of the online poker sites. Each online poker site will offer their own promotions, so players want to pay attention and make sure they choose a site with a lot to offer as far as the bonuses go. This is why so many people have chosen to play at Aced.com. This online poker site goes above and beyond in order to offer its players very generous and exciting bonuses.

Aced.com $100K Freeroll

This is the current promotion that has been running at Aced.com. The $100K Freeroll daily qualifiers have been going on since mid-April, but the main $100K tournament will start this Sunday, May 30 at 2:00PM Carbon Time (AKA Central Standard Time). The winner of the main event will get a cool $20,000!

There are 5 daily qualifying tournaments that are all free to enter. Players in the top 25 will advance to the $100K Freeroll Qualifier. This tournament takes place this Saturday at 18:30 (Carbon Time).

You also have the option to make a deposit using the code 100MAYPK and you will receive a ticket to the $100K Depositor Qualifier that will take place on Saturday, May 29th at 17:00 (Carbon Time). The top 500 players from either of the Qualifier tournaments will receive entry into the main event.

Other Aced.com Poker Bonuses

The Aced.com online poker site starts by making sure that their new players are welcomed correctly. This is why they offer them a generous initial deposit bonus good for 100% of their initial deposit up to $500. This is a great way for new players to start out on the right foot and come up on more money right away. New players will find that it is very easy for them to qualify for and receive this bonus. New players will want to make sure that they make their initial deposit count since they will be able to earn more money the larger their deposit is.

There is also a reload bonus where players can receive a bonus of 100%. This bonus is good for as much as $200. Players want to make sure they read up on the terms and conditions of the reload bonus so they know they are following the correct procedure needed in order to collect this reload bonus. It is another way in which Aced.com goes about taking care of their players and having them feel appreciated.

Another great bonus the players at Aced.com get to take advantage of is the Four Aces Promotion. This promotion allows players who are lucky enough to get four aces to win 40 times the amount of the big blind. Players already know how exciting it is to get four aces, now they will have even more reason to get excited. This is a good promotion which any player can receive if they are the lucky one to come up with those four fabulous aces!

One more exciting bonus being offered at Aced.com is the Royal Flush Bonus. This great bonus makes it even more exciting for players to see that royal flush staring back at them. The royal flush bonus will give the lucky holder of a royal flush 100 times the amount of the big blind. This will give the players even more incentive to try for that royal flush. This is another impressive promotion which gives players all of the extra incentive they need to try for that already exciting hand.

Online poker players want to know that they are on the best poker site out there. They like to know the site is going to provide them with such things as excellent poker games, solid software, good customer support, and many great bonuses and promotions. Aced.com knows how important it is for players to be able to log into their online poker account and find many great bonuses being offered that they can take advantage of. Aced.com is definitely one online poker site that does all they can to accommodate their players with all of those benefits and features. The players here know they are playing on a site which takes care of its players.

Features of Rake Free Friday

You get to earn a bonus equal to the value of all of Friday’s rake and fees. These fees will be put back into your account on Saturday morning. This will also help accelerate you through Bet365 VIP Scheme. The more you play, the more important you become and the faster you will achieve any other bonus restrictions that they have for other promotions.

You don’t have to wait until the end of the month in order to improve your VIP Status. All you have to do during rake free Fridays is contact Bet365 and ask them to upgrade your VIP level when you get enough Merit Points.

There is an unlimited amount of bonus money available for Gold players and above. Play all day and all night and you will earn some serious money. If you are a Bronze or Silver player, you can still earn up to $100.

In order to start claiming your bonus, you must decide to opt in by going to poker.bet365.com promotion page.

Other Bet365 Poker Promotions

Don’t forget about the €500 Freeroll that happens every Wednesday night at 19:00 GMT. All you have to do to qualify for these freeroll tournaments by earning 10 or more Merit Points on any of the GBP or EUR cash tables.