Modern day poker has come a long way since the days of backroom card games. Texas Hold' Em is today's most popular form of poker, with the no limit form colloquially known as "the Cadillac of poker", the game draws big money tournaments, and nose bleed high stakes cash games.
The game appear in Las Vegas in 1967 and began to increase in popularity through the 80s and 90s, and exploded into the power house it is today after the poker boom began in 2003.
Online poker has taken the game to new heights over the past decade, taking poker from live tables into a power house, and a ten billion dollar a year industry. Online poker grew quickly between the years of 2003 and 2006. In fact, the player base for all sites was, at minimum, doubling in size each succeeding year. A lot of this was spawned by the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event Winner, Chris Moneymaker. Moneymaker (his real name), was an 27 year-old accountant from Tennessee who won online $39 WSOP Main Event Satellite on PokerStars, and ended up winning the championship and a $2.5 million dollar first prize.
Moneymaker's win, which was nationally televised, caused millions of people to want to pursue poker glory. Online poker made that dream easy to chase. Poker continues to attract millions of players around the world. Some people treat poker as a hobby, some other approached it very professionally and became professional players making millions of dollars playing both live and online.
