Poker at Betway.com

We offer a wide range of action packed tournaments, freerolls, special promotions and qualifiers to the world's biggest poker events. Download our amazing poker software or use the instant play Flash Version. It's your call!

LATEST POKER NEWS AND PROMOTIONS

March Poker race

MARCH POKER RACE
$10,000 up for grabs this month!
Did you miss your chance to take your share of $10,000 in February? Well worry no more, as we’re giving every single one of our players another shot at $10,000 during the entire month of March!

Stand a chance to win cash in the Poker Race Final with a Double Start Stack!

Find out if you made it to the final on our Poker Race Leaderboard.

Join the Poker Race! | Current Leaderboard | February Winners

EASTER MINI FESTIVAL
€235,000 Guaranteed

The Easter Weekend will see the egg-citing start to our Easter Mini Festival! We’ll be running eight events between 2nd-5th April with a total of €235,000 up for grabs.

Easter Events

WIN A €5,000 POKER PACKAGE
You could be playing in the Irish Open!
We’re giving away two fabulous €5,000 packages to this incredible poker tournament which takes place from 2 April to 5 April 2010.

UPDATE – Congratulations to Niklas G from Sweden who has won a €5,000 Irish Open package for FREE as one of the top 10 players in the January race. Congratulations!

Think you’ve also got the poker skills to go all the way to Dublin? Learn more about how to win a Betway package to the Irish Open.

Here’s how to win a €5,000 package!

Win Cash with our Freeroll Tournaments

Win fabulous cash prizes in our poker freeroll tournaments. Daily tournaments offer cash prizes of up to $200 and there are 5 tournaments a day. For a chance to win a bigger cash prize, check out our Tuesday and Saturday freeroll tournaments with $500 up for grabs. It doesn’t cost a penny to enter, so get involved now.

» Enter Freeroll Tournament Now

Poker Bonus

POKER WELCOME BONUS
100% up to $1000!
That’s right, we’ll match your first deposit up to $1000 as soon as you reach your points target, and you do that by simply playing poker at Betway.com!

Click to find out more about the Poker Bonus

POKER

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More information about Poker

History of Poker

Poker is a game which involves betting, hand ranking and bluffing. There are many theories on the origin of poker. R.F Foster, an expert on card games, traces the origin of poker to the Persian game of As Nas. The old school of thought tries to draw the ancestry of poker from earlier games, such as the French game Poque, the German Pochen, the renaissance game Primero, the French Brelan, the English Brag and so on. The modern theorists believe that poker originated in the early or mid-1700 and became popular in the Mississippi river region by 1800 where river boats facilitated the spread of the game to other parts of the United States.

Poker has many variants and sub-variants, and they differ in terms of the hand values used, the number of betting rounds, betting limits and so on. The general format of poker is the same for most games. Once the cards are dealt, a player can make a bet. Players can call (match a bet), fold (forfeit their interests in the hand) or raise (increase the size of the bet). Betting continues until all the players have either called or folded. After all betting rounds are finished; the best hand wins the pot. One of the most known poker tournaments is the World Series of Poker (WSOP), which popularized the modern format of poker and commenced in 1970. From the year 1987, casinos witnessed a shift from draw poker to community card poker games.

Online Poker

Statistics from the Christiansen Capital Advisors state that online poker revenues reached $2.4 billion in 2005. When compared to the traditional version, online poker can be played for free or at minimum stakes online. In the late 1990s, free online poker was played using Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Planet Poker was the first online real money card room, which opened in 1998. Today, online card rooms provide training for new players and help them master the art of poker before they take the plunge and play for real money. Most card rooms (both online and traditional casinos) take a rake percentage of the pot, which is one of the revenue sources for the casino.

Poker craze is growing and online card rooms are supporting this trend. Major online sites offer satellite tournaments through which players can enter real-life poker events. A great example is Chris Moneymaker who entered the 2003 WSOP through a satellite tournament and won the main event. TV coverage has greatly contributed to the popularity of poker players including Doyle Brunson and Daniel Negreanu who are considered Poker royalty.