Online Poker Industry Now 20 Years Old

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Friday, January 19th, 2018 | Written by Stephen Smith

While everyone was celebrating the start of the new year on January 1st, there was another milestone event that was taking place on the very same day, namely the 20th anniversary of the online poker industry.

1998 Online Poker Origin

The birth of online poker dates back to January 1, 1998, after Randy Blumer, an engineering graduate who built ships for the Canadian Navy, decided to turn his attention towards his real passion of poker. He subsequently developed the Planet Poker play money website in 1997, with real-money poker launched on New Year’s Day of the following year.

Blumer advertised the site on the main card game publication at the time, CardPlayer Magazine, with these ads then helping to direct some players to the site’s $3/$6 online cash game tables. As its traffic grew, more tables were later introduced, with the site expanding to match the players’ needs, including allowing more payment processing options. In addition, poker experts such as Roy Cooke and Mike Caro also joined forces with Blumer to help improve the site further.

A Challenger Appears

Anyone that had experience with computers or gambling knew that Blumer was on to a potential winner, and in 1999 Paradise Poker became the first competitor to Planet Poker. Player numbers subsequently exploded across the two sites, leading to a demand for new software to handle all the increased traffic. At the time, the software created by AceKicker for Planet Poker helped the site compete with its rival, and while a number of competitors then sprang up, the two sites remained the dominant leaders in the nascent industry for years.

The launch of PartyPoker in 2001, however, changed all that with the site soon becoming the next big thing, until PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker started offering products of their own soon after. The three poker sites then led the poker boom from 2003 to 2008 until a tsunami hit the industry in 2006.

Industry Changers

Online poker players who started playing online during the boom knew almost nothing about Planet Poker as it had pretty much disappeared by then. While the site continued offering online poker through 2006, it had left the United States alongside PartyPoker that year following the introduction of a piece of legislation called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). In March 2007, Planet Poker stopped offering real-money games all together, and switched to a subscription-based free-play site, instead.

A further shock wave to the industry occurred on April 15, 2011, a day referred to as Black Friday which forever altered the global online poker industry, even though it technically only affected American players. As a result of the Department of Justice (DOJ) seizing domains owned by US-facing online poker sites, including PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, UltimateBet, and Absolute Poker, a number of other sites were ultimately forced to shut down.

Planet Poker, for instance, was unable to maintain its business model and shut its poker offering on January 26, 2017, although the website still displays poker game rules.

Lessons of History

Online poker may just have 20 years of history behind it, but it’s important to remember the roots of the game in order to better understand what it has become today.

From the launch of Planet Poker’s first cash game table to the modern online poker environment, the industry has continued to grow, blossom, and boom, becoming the most popular online game for years. The greed of governments which sought to control the industry unfortunately halted the game’s progress in its tracks, but even so, online poker continues to live, and in some markets is positively thriving.

European countries, for example, are preparing to join their individual ring-fenced poker markets and share player liquidity, while plans are also in place for American states to do the same thing. As more US states and countries around the world start regulating their poker markets, they are then more likely to join in these agreements. Nevertheless, it could take several years before another online poker boom takes place, but if it does, it will likely look a lot different from the market of 2003-2006.

I will end by saying that there is too much passion for online poker to just die out, and as the game moves forward this year, we’d like to say thank you to Planet Poker for getting the ball rolling, and wish a happy 20th birthday to the online poker industry, and many happy returns!