Poker is one of the most widely played games in casinos today, and it has been for a while. It is estimated that the online poker industry was generating revenues close to $1.4 billion in the year 2004. The first online poker game was played in 1990 while the first game that dealt in actual money was played in 1998.
Since then, the online poker industry grew exponentially. Soon huge public firms started making pricy acquisitions of these online poker sites and the online poker industry came into existence as a big market player.
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Cryptocurrencies and Poker
Ethereum and Poker
However, with the advent of Ethereum and blockchain technology, online poker is starting to adopt as Ethereum’s smart contracts offer more security, anonymity and control to the players. Now, there is a protocol which governs poker on the Ethereum network and it has three major steps. It operates using Ethereum’s smart contracts between the parties.
- Preparation of Contractual Parameters:
This is the stage when the players continue with the official contract on blockchain. Players agree to set standards for the contract like the allowed number of players, the conditions for the contract to change, the deadline and the remuneration paid to each player in case of game abortion.
- Executions off the Block-Chain:
In this phase calculations are performed locally i.e off the block-chain. Multi-Party Computations are run which later connect to the on-chain contract.
- Abortion Handling:
Whenever a local off-the-chain execution is aborted, players use this process to communicate and either acquire their monetary compensation or move on with the aborted local execution.
Advantages of Ethereum Poker
The above given mechanism explains how poker transactions occur on Ethereum blockchain using smart contracts. The advantages that these processes entail have been listed below:
- With Ethereum Poker, you don’t need to deposit any money into an account. This provides the player greater security as it removes the risk of your account being hacked.
- Smart Contracts ensure that each player gets their designated amount of compensation, also it holds each player’s money in a virtual escrow which increases the reliability of Ethereum poker way beyond regular online poker.
Disadvantages of Ethereum Poker
As, the Block-chain concept is a new one and Ehtereum poker hasn’t got as much traction as other entities on the block-chain, there are certain drawbacks to Ethereum Poker.
- Primarily, the number of online sites that offer ethereum poker is very little, so there aren’t as many Ethereum Poker sites available.
- Also, it is easier securing a table at a regular online poker site as the waiting times on Ethereum sites are very large. So, it can be a bit of a hassle if you’re looking to play a poker game on Ehtereum network.
Thus, Ethereum poker is a big leap forward in providing total security and effective gameplay to poker players. But it is going to take time before it can garner a market of its own.