Online poker is simply the card game played online over the Internet. However, it was not always so. Online poker has been largely responsible for a great increase in the amount of online poker players all over the world. Before this, the Internet was mainly used by computer savvy people who either used it for playing games or for communicating with friends and loved ones.
With the widespread popularity of online poker, many websites came up offering a variety of such games. These websites attracted a lot of players and soon it was easy for them to make money out of the competition by offering cash games, tournament games and even play in real time for cash. This attracted a new breed of enthusiasts and they started registering with these websites to play in their favorite game. Eventually, with the help of software that run on a server, the entire process was made possible through the Internet and all that a player needed was an email ID and an authentic ID with a valid bank account to register.
To encourage more players to register and participate in these online poker tournaments and games, a system of bonuses and incentives were introduced. Initially, the maximum deposit bonus was just one percent of the initial money wagered; but with time, the deposit bonus changed to two, then to three, four and finally to five percent. Initially, it was difficult to maintain a constant cash deposit rate because many of the poker site administrators enjoyed the habit of changing the rules often. However, with time the online poker industry saw the light at the end of the tunnel and the industry as a whole began providing incentives to its registered members. Initially, the bonuses provided were relatively small, but with time the requirement for them grew till the point where the required incentives eventually became a reason for registration. Today, if you want to earn a significant sum of money, you do not necessarily need to have a high IQ, because there are some great online poker training sites that will teach you everything that you need to know about online poker.