Online gambling to top $10bn

Washington - Worldwide online gambling revenues will top $10bn in 2005 for operators of virtual casinos and bookmaking, a market research firm said on Tuesday. The report by the firm eMarketer said the $10bn represents only the “vig,” or house cut - which means there was likely well over $200bn in play over the year.

Fuelled by a poker craze, the growth of broadband, and television coverage, online gambling is quickly moving to the mainstream,” says Ben Macklin, analyst at eMarketer.

Online gambling is considered by US authorities to be illegal, but that does not prevent many Americans from visiting internet gaming sites, which are mainly based offshore.

The eMarketer report said various research shows 20 million to 30 million US internet users visited gambling or sweepstakes sites in February 2005 …

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Useful poker information:

BUTTON CHARGE - A periodic fee paid by whoever is the button, perhaps every 20 minutes or 30 minutes. Constitutes part or all of the HOUSE CUT.
BLACK - When referring to chips, black usually stands for $100 casino chips. "This guy sits down with a stack of blacks and raises the first bet." Not ALL casinos use black for $100 but that is the common usage.
KICKER TROUBLE - Not having as high a kicker as an opponent.
STRAIGHT FLUSH - A hand consisting of 5 cards in sequence and the same suit.
MILES OF BAD ROAD - Three of a kind. Prefixed with a number, 3*<N>, to indicate 3 <N>s. Thus "24 miles of bad road" is 3 eights, etc. (This obviously doesn't work for face cards.)
LITTLE SLICK - In Hold'em, hole cards of A-2, suited or not.

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