The explosion of online poker came in 2003 after the win in the World Series of Poker by Chris Moneymaker, an online amateur who had qualified through an online satellite for only $39. The next year another online qualifier won the World Series of Poker, Gregory Raymer. The World Series of Poker is officially seen as the World Championship of poker and is the most prestigious tournament to win. In 2003 the entrants number was 839 and in 2004 the entrants number increased to 2576. The main reasons for the triple in players are online poker and the extended time poker had on TV.
The online poker industry grew with several thousands % from 2003 to 2005 and new poker rooms popped up everywhere.
The truth is that there are more than hundred poker rooms to choose between but they don’t all have their own players and original software. Most online poker rooms are a part of a network where several sites use a common platform. They might have different graphics but they work the same and share player base. Sites under the same network are called skins. There are approximately 25-30 networks, some huge with hundreds of thousands of players and more than a dozen rooms and some smaller with many or few sites with small player bases. There are of course independent sites like Pokerstars.com, Ultimatebet.com and PacificPoker.com with large player bases as well. But most sites belong to a network. The largest networks are the Party Poker network and the Prima Poker network. The Prima poker network has more than 30 rooms.
Most sites and networks work the same with the differences being the flow of the game, the graphics, competence of the employees (support standard), bonuses and promotions, game variety, betting limits, quality of the players etc.
What to think about when deciding what poker rooms to play are things like: player volume (bigger is better), level of competition (easy games means good money), software (the general feel) and loyalty programs for regular players.