In the years 2003 to 2005 online poker was the fastest growing segment of any sector of the online gambling industry. It is this growth and its continued growth which has lead to the words "explosive growth", "phenomenon", "boom" and "exponential" being regularly used with regards to online poker. We are talking about growth rates of 600% in some instances, so it is understandable why such words are used. 

Initially the majority of online poker "growth" was taking place in the United States, however this has expanded to the UK, Europe and of course the rest of the known world.  

Its starting point can be traced back to 1998, although poker itself has been played for many hundreds of years. Planet Poker set off the trend by launching in 1998, then came Paradise Poker in 1999. Paradise Poker is still a popular online poker room, although the fact that it was an industry leader at the turn of the century, does not reflect on this site in present day terms, in either technology or popularity.  

The beauty of making online poker available was that it exposed the game to a world-wide audience, and this is what took it to the growth levels it has achieved. Software improved and other companies started to see the benefits of offering these gambling services to such a wide audience. 

Party Poker, Poker Stars and UB followed suit in 2001, and these sites are still major players in the industry. As soon as playing poker was made mainstream by televising the World Poker Tour in 2003 - online poker playing took off like a bat out of hell and it is for this reason that the most massive surge in popularity was seen at this time.  

This tournament aired on the Travel Channel and the rest as they say is history. After the WTP, the World Series of Poker also received televised coverage in the same year and at this event a record 800 players took part in the No Limit Texas Hold 'em main event.  

The French online poker site, BetClic, made the news today as they sign NBA star Tony Parker. The San Antonio great will sign on to help get BetClic off the ground as the process begins to attract players. Parker’s famous name will go a long way when it comes to attracting players to the site. His poker skills on the other hand will have to be proven when he see him hit the tables of BetClic. We have seen Tony Parker and wife Eva Longoria partake in poker charity events in the past and it looks like we will the same from them in the future.

It was definitely Sunday Funday with PokerStars as they continue to out due their competition and continuously set records. The 4th anniversary for the PokerStars Sunday Million took place yesterday and the prize pool was absolutely astonishing. The final prize pool reached a ridiculous $7,233,800 as 3,169 players hit the PokerStars felt for this special occasion. The player to ship an eight figure payday was ‘RichieRichZH’ who took first place and the $1,141,510 for the first place efforts. Falling just short of reaching that million dollar mark was second place finisher ‘lankeshwar’ who still took home $754,774.

Event #22 of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series is a massive 2-Day event which has a buy-in of $2,500 and a prize pool that reached $2 million. The Carlos Mortensen hosted tournament is currently running with only 21 of the initial 794 players’ remains. Right now Caio Pimenta is out in front with a chip stack valued at 404,019, but close behind is Full Tilt pro Steve Yea who’s holding a chip stack of 363,440. Stay with Poker777 as only 21 players are left to fight it out for the FTOPS jersey and the first place prize that’s worth $430,000.

The stars were out in Las Vegas as the PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour Charity Tournament took form. The tournament raised more than $40,000 for the Southern Nevada’s Three Square food bank. The celebrities that participated in the tournament were the likes of Jason ‘George Costanza’ Alexander, T-Pain, and Christian Slater. Another charity event took place as the Commerce Casino was the home to the WPT Celebrity Invitational which was setup to raise money for Chrysalis. The poker world along with celebrities always finds a way to give back to the less fortunate.