The Rise and Fall of Online Poker: A Decade of Drama

Ultimate Bet entered the online poker market at the end of 2000, with software developed by ieLogic and consulting by Russ Hamilton.

Paradise Poker had an audience of 50,000 players, mostly playing limit hold'em. PartyPoker, founded by the daughter of an American porn baron and two Indian IT geniuses, introduced the PartyPoker.com Million tournament with a $1,000,000 prize pool. PokerStars opened its virtual doors in October 2001, positioning itself as the 'home of tournament players'.

In 2002, the Travel Channel aired episodes of World Poker Tour, showing players' cards for the first time, sparking a significant rise in interest in MTTs. In 2003, Chris Moneymaker won the main event of the World Series of Poker, having qualified via a $40 satellite on PokerStars. Ladbrokes, an English bookmaker, opened its own poker site in 2002, focusing on players from England and Scandinavia. Full Tilt Poker, founded by Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer, quickly became a major competitor in the online poker market. By 2004, PartyPoker's daily profit exceeded $1,000,000, with tens of thousands of concurrent users. In 2006, PartyPoker was one of the largest companies in the world, with a value exceeding that of British Airways. On October 13, 2006, the U.S. government passed a law prohibiting banks from processing transactions to gaming sites, marking a significant turning point in online poker.