Online vs Offline poker

Clarissa Kane | Published on October 17, 2007

It’s not exactly a secret that the world-wide popularity the game of poker enjoys nowadays is largely due to online poker, and television. Television might be the primary “culprit” is popularizing the game, but online poker offers the hands-on possibility to play, for all people interested, no matter where in the world they may be.
Suddenly, playing poker has become a matter of turning on the computer and clicking on a few links.

Accessibility is the primary advantage that online poker has over its conventional relative. Online poker is accessible to all, regardless where they live, and regardless of the language they speak. Each and every one of the other advantages online poker room possess over brick and mortar ones, stems from this accessibility.

Because the World Wide Web is basically a world-wide display case as well, there are virtually no limits to how many players can join a given poker room. Thus, while a few tens or a few hundred players pass as huge crowds in any live poker event, a few thousand players do not represent an outstandingly good traffic for an online poker room. Because there are thousands upon thousands of players at their tables, online poker rooms can afford to give their patrons much more generous bonuses (sign-up ones or loyalty ones) and often times allow them more-than-generous edges like rakeback or cashback.



The rake that they take off each pot is also much reduced compared to live poker rooms, and it is strictly proportional with the amount of money in the raked pot.

A live poker room won’t be able to afford to count exactly 5% of each pot that is taken down, to a max a $3, like online rooms do. Real poker rooms usually take the rake based on time collection. Thus, playing in low or micro-limit games becomes a bad investment, and people will generally end up paying more rake. On the other hand though, the time-collection rake will lead to looser games at higher limits, because people are aware the rake is not a percentage of the pot they’re so generously stuffing.

Besides the rake that you pay by the hour, you need to add up a few other expenses to your overall live-poker rake as well. Live events take place in certain locations, and that means you have to travel to get there. Once there, food and lodging represent yet another hurdle. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t consider all that part of the rake. If you look at things that way, plus you consider that no live poker room will ever give you a sign-up bonus, (except maybe the comp dollars that some establishments grant you) then you’ll realize there can be no fair comparison between online and offline rake rates.


We all know what a great edge game- and table selection can provide for a skilled player. Online, you couldn’t possibly ask for a better opportunity for table selection: you can check out any table you want to, you can watch people play for as long as you want to, (without them knowing about it) you can learn everything about their true colors before you actually take a seat.

I’d like to see you do that in a brick and mortar poker room. You should be glad if you can find more than a single table at the limit/stakes you’re comfortable with.

To top it all off, you’ll waste a tremendous amount of time chasing down line poker games, even when all you’re after, is a game at your local poker room. Travel not only takes money, it takes time too. More often than not, you’ll be forced to wait until a seat frees up at your preferred limit, which means more time lost, time you could’ve spent playing poker and making money.

Offline, there are much fewer hands played/hour than online, and I’d really love to see someone try to multi-table in real life.

Bottom line is: the online poker environment is much more forgiving than the offline one. In live poker, you have the odds stacked against you, so in order to eek out a long-term win, you’ll need to bring something very special to that table.