Realmoneypoker.org has some interesting thoughts on what US poker players can expect in 2012. You will learn who our allies and enemies are in Congress. I think every American poker player should take a much more active role in pushing for legalization and regulation. This issue is not just about gambling. It is about our Constitutional rights.

Realmoneypoker.org makes a good argument about President Obama. I did not know this before but the president enjoys playing poker too. This could be very important when a pro-poker Bill finds its way to the president’s desk.

Unfortunately not all of our elected officials feel the need to uphold the Constitution. According to Realmoneypoker.org some of the republicans fighting for the nomination oppose online poker. Here is a breakdown on their viewpoints:

• Newt Gingrich – Newt Gingrich has been working in the lobbying industry for many years. He was the House speaker until he was forced to resign due to 84 ethics violations. The House voted (395-28) on sanctions and a $300,000 fine. How does this relate to legal online poker? Realmoneypoker.org has done some research on Newt’s donors and they found that Sheldon Adelson donated $5,000,000 to super PAC that supports Newt. Sheldon is billionaire casino magnate who strongly opposes the legalization of online poker because online poker sites would be competing with his brick and mortar casinos across the US. Newt’s vote has already been bought so we can expect a veto if Newt is elected and a pro-poker Bill gets put on his desk.
• Rick Santorum – Realmoneypoker.org also reports that Rick would probably veto any online poker regulation legislation based on his conservative voting history.
• Mitt Romney – Mitt is the republican front runner thus far so it is likely that we will see an Obama Vs Romney showdown November. Mitt is a Mormon and Mormons believe that a man named Joseph Smith was directed by an angel in 1823 to a buried book, the Book of Mormon. With Mitt’s religious background it is likely that he would never allow poker to be legalized since it is a sin.
• Ron Paul – Ron is the only major republican candidate who would support online poker legalization. Ron strongly supports constitutional rights and according to Realmoneypoker.org is a co-sponsored the Barton Bill, a pro online poker bill.

• Finding a US friendly room with decent traffic, software and promotions.
• Depositing funds.
• Cashing out funds in a timely manner.

The first problem isn’t too hard to solve since there are still some big names left in the US market. Funding your poker account will be your next problem but cashing out tends to be the toughest problem out of the three. Online poker rooms have a history of doing whatever it takes to provide convenient deposit options for U.S. citizens. Very few put the same amount of effort into finding fast and easy cashout options. This is very evident at the Merge poker network. They have no trouble taking your money but when it comes time for them to give it back they will make you wait weeks, or even months.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Depositing money into your account can still be tough or even impossible at certain rooms. It all comes down to how much effort you are willing to put in it. Here are a few deposit methods available to Americans at some poker sites. I have also listed the pros and cons for each option.

• e-Wallets – Many e-wallets take a few days to setup so this puts many players off. We want to play poker right now, not a few days from now. Once you get it setup and verified it is much quicker.
• Moneygram / Western Union – These options used to be reserved for large ($500-$1,000) deposits but many rooms have lowered the limits recently due to a lack or other options. These options are not instant either but they are generally faster and easier than e-wallets. Americans can send the money online but there is a hefty fee. The fees make this option unviable for small deposits.
• Credit cards – U.S. friendly poker sites have mostly pulled Mastercard from their cashiers so Visa is typically the only credit or debit card you can use. Not all Visa cards will work however. One trick some players are using is to buy pre-paid Visa cards. Once you fund a particular brand that works this should make depositing very easy and obviously this method is instant and there are not any fees that you must pay.

Cashing out your winnings is even tougher than depositing at most poker sites. Many simply offer paper checks which can take a long time. I really miss the 24-48 bank wires and e-checks at Pokerstars. There is only one poker site that I know of who has done a good job in the cashout department. BetOnline, a U.S. friendly poker room, sports book and casino, has three speed levels for paper checks. There are fees for the faster services but most people don’t mind paying them since they receive their cashout quickly.

Some of these tips will also help you win at the cash game poker tables. A winning poker strategy is impossible to condense into a single article so I will try to focus on the basic principles.

Win Poker Tournaments By Folding

You might be wondering how folding is going to help you win at poker. The truth is that a good player will fold 50-70% of the hands dealt to them in a poker tournament, barring heads-up MTT’s. Hand selection is the most important part of a winning strategy. You can play a few mediocre hands to keep your opponents guessing in regards to your hand range but other than that you want to stick to extremely strong hands. You are not going to win any poker tournaments if your flop percentage is 60-70%. The exact number of hands you should play is not possible to determine since luck does play a part.

Win Poker Tournaments By Being Observant

Many people neglect this aspect of a winning poker strategy. Taking notes or simply observing and remembering how your opponents at the table play can help you win more hands. You should build a mental picture of each of the players at your table. You want to know the following about each player:

• Starting hand range – This should be too hard to figure out. If you pay attention you will see which hands they call the flop with. If a player has had AK, QQ and AJ during their last three showdowns that will tell you that they are playing tight poker. Granted, this could change at any time but it at least gives you a basic idea of what hands you should expect your opponents to have when you face a tough decision.
• Playing style – Some players will tend to always place a continuation bet after the flop. Others tend to shy away by checking if their hand did not improve. Other players enjoy showing their bluffs. Monitoring this kind of activity can seriously help you win poker tournaments and at ring tables.

These tips will help you win more and win more often at the poker rooms. These strategies might seem simple but I’ve found that simple works best when it comes to poker. You don’t need to be a mathematician to win poker games on a regular basis. You simply need to use common sense and take advantage of every possible edge you can find. Once you start winning poker tournaments the hard part will be deciding what to spend the money on.

OnlinePokerRealMoney.com

• 2002-2012 timeline covering the major highlights regarding the legality of online poker for U.S. citizens.
• An easy to understand guide to the current legal status of online poker in the USA.
• How state and federal laws have made it more difficult to fund your poker account and what deposit methods U.S. citizens can currently use.
• A list of Bills related to online poker.

As an internationally popular real money poker guide OnlinePokerRealMoney.com does not focus strictly on the USA. As I mentioned above they also cover many other countries. Canadians and Australians will find this site very useful since some poker rooms do not accept them due to legal issues.

I suggest staying at OnlinePokerRealMoney.com or at least bookmarking them once you have found an online poker room that accepts players from your country. This is because they are also an authority on poker room reviews and more importantly, poker bonuses and bonus codes. As one of the Internet’s leading resources on playing online poker for real money OnlinePokerRealMoney.com has been able to secure special deposit bonuses and welcome packages.

OnlinePokerRealMoney.com also has information regarding random number generators, also known as RNGs. These are the computer programs that make online poker just as random as using a deck of cards. Read this OnlinePRNews.com press release about random number generators to learn more.

You can claim better than average bonuses when you use OnlinePokerRealMoney.com bonus codes and/or tracking links. They currently have a special deal running at BetOnline that provides an exclusive $900 bonus.

The OnlinePokerRealMoney.com web site has several other helpful sections that I haven’t even mentioned yet. There is a large section dedicated to poker deposit options. This may not be too important for international players but anyone from the USA will appreciate the value of these articles. They also have a section dedicated to poker games. This includes rules articles for Texas Hold’em, Omaha poker, Stud poker and Draw poker.

OnlinePokerRealMoney.com also features a large poker strategy section boasting over 60 articles. Some are about general topics like bankroll management and  others are for more advanced real money online poker players.

The poker room reviews at OnlinePokerRealMoney.com will tell you everything you need to know about a room so you can save yourself time by going directly to the poker room that offers your favorite games, accepts your deposit method and runs the promotions that you like. I’ve personally downloaded and registered at many poker rooms only to find out that I cannot deposit or that they do not offer all three Stud poker games. Detailed poker site reviews like those found at OnlinePokerRealMoney.com can really save you a lot of trouble when you are looking for a place to play poker online for money.

The first tip I want to share has nothing to do with the baseball teams that are playing and is guaranteed to help you win at least 5% more each week. Choosing one online sports book and being completely faithful has some perks, especially in regards to VIP programs, but in the end it will cost you money. Online bookmakers tend to compete with each other when they put out their odds. MLB baseball game odds will vary from one sports book to another.

I personally have found that holding accounts at three online bookmakers is the right number for me but you can do even better by having more. Right now only two major sports books are offering futures bets for the 2012 MLB season but I’ve already found some big differences in the odds being offered on who will win the World Series:

Houston Astros:

• Bet365 – 200/1
• Vegas Insider – 300/1

Kansas City Royals:

• Bet365 – 90/1
• Vegas Insider – 30/1

Philadelphia Phillies:

• Bet365 – 5/1
• Vegas Insider – 9/2

This covers the spectrum pretty well.  There is a massive difference in odds for the first two bets at these two sports books. Betting $100 on the Royals will pay $3,000 at one bookmaker and $9,000 at another. The last one isn’t a big difference when compared to the first two but it makes my point even better. Dropping a hundred or even a grand on the Phillies is going to be a pretty common futures bet. This is the difference in odds you will be dealing with during the upcoming season. Half a point on a single bet isn’t much but it really adds up. This odds difference can easily add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars a quarter of the way into the season.

No other MLB baseball betting strategy is guaranteed to increase your winnings like this one. Before you place a wager on anything baseball game be sure to check out the odds and lines being offered by several online bookmakers.

The next MLB betting tip I want to share is more for serious or high stakes gamblers in my eyes. Many professional sports bettors recommend sticking to straight bets. While this is a sound strategy for hardcore baseball bettors I think that prop bets and parlays bets can be very fun and profitable. It really just comes down to what your objective is. Surely you want to win money but you have to ask yourself how much? If you want to turn a $10 bet into $1,000 you certainly can’t do it with a straight bet. Betting on long shots should not be your main focus but there is nothing wrong with betting small and winning big, even if the odds are terrible.

How To Claim The Top 2012 Lock Poker Bonus

There are several steps you must complete to claim Lock Poker’s best bonus in 2012. This bonus includes a 150% match bonus up to $750, as well as some extra perks. Be sure to follow these instructions carefully or you could end up with the standard bonus or worse yet, no bonus at all. It’s actually a pretty simple process but we are talking about free money here so it is better to be overly careful than not to be.  Here are the steps below:

- Step #1 – Visit Lock Poker
- Ste #2 – Download Lock Poker software
- Step 3 – When you are ready to make a deposit enter the Lock Poker bonus code PNREPORT.

Clearing Your Lock Poker Bonus

This is the fun part. Once your bonus money has been placed in your bonus account you will get to clear it. This involves nothing more than playing poker, your initial intention anyway. Lock Poker will move $5 of the bonus to your cash account at a time.  This is how you can make that happen:

- Play at a real money poker table. It doesn’t matter which card game you play.
- Play in a real money single table tournament.
- Play in a real money multiple table tournament.
- Play the casino games built into Lock Poker’s software.

The clearance ratio is 75 points for $1 so to receive a $5 increment you will need to earn 375 points. Depending on where you have play poker in the past (i.e. Pokerstars) this may seem like a lot but 375 points at Lock Poker is comparable to around 50 FPP’s at Pokerstars. Lock Poker just credits more points per hand than most poker rooms so in general this bonus is fairly easy to clear.

Lock Poker is also running daily freerolls for new depositors. You get to play in quite a few of these after depositing if you used the bonus code listed above. Each one had a $500 prize pool and it pays out both cash and valuable tournament tickets. Here are the payouts for the top 3 finishers:

• 1st – $25 & a $109 tournament ticket – Total value: $134
• 2nd – $21 & a $60 satellite ticket – Total value: $81
• 3rd – $5 & a $60 satellite ticket – Total value: $65

Today’s $500 new depositor freeroll had 216 entrants and paid the top 22. In reality there were far fewer players actually participating. Many signup but then either forget to play or just choose to not.

Lock Poker also runs regular $200 freerolls that are open to all. Most of the other rooms on this network host these tournaments too but they only pay out a measly $50. This is another example of Lock Poker giving players more rewards than their partners on the network.

PokerView is also ranked among the easiest poker sites to win money at. There are several factors that have contributed in creating this. Many of the poker rooms on this network also offer a casino and/or sports book. These players tend to only play poker every now and then, recreationally. This means that many have less experience and than the average online poker player and many do not bother reading strategy guides.

PokerView and the other rooms on this network run an insane number of freerolls each month. This attracts large numbers of inexperienced players. Today’s freeroll players tend to become tomorrow’s new real money players.

PokerView’s software is extremely sociable. Other rooms focus on features for serious grinders, like the ability to play at 10-20 tables at once. PokerView’s features include a rabbit cam, animated emotions and insults (i.e. type donkey in the chat box and one will appear on the table for all to see). Many people specifically play on this network because the view poker as a fun past-time or hobby, not as 40-50 hours/week profession or part-time job. This definitely affects the average players’ skill level. If you compare the players/flop percentage at PokerView with the stats from the same game/stakes at Pokerstars you will find that PokerView’s players are playing a much wider range of hands.

Add in the fact that they are the Internet’s leading webcam poker room and you get a site that is very fun to play at and easy to win money at. They focus on micro, small and mid stakes tournaments and they typically guarantee them for more than the actual prize pool would be otherwise. These are called overlays and PokerView hosts hundreds of them per month. If a $10 tournament has a $3,000 GTD prize pool but only 200 players signup you are getting extra value. Your $10 buy-in is really worth $15.

PokerView also has a killer VIP program. There are four tiers in this program. Here is an overview of the benefits:

• Cashback – Receive part of your rake back on a daily basis. You will receive a minimum of 5% and a maximum of 35%.
• Freerolls – There is a monthly freeroll for each VIP level at Poker View. These start off at $750 and go up to $3,000.
• Cash For Points – Trade in your poker points at a 100 points/$1 ratio.

Bovada Poker

Their poker room has always accepted U.S. players so I’m not sure why they did this but in the end it looks like it will benefit American players. European players will play at Bodog and U.S. players will play at Bovada but these two rooms will share player-base so the traffic will not be affected.

There is more to this re-brand than just a change of name. The Bovada Poker software is much different from what Bodog Poker used in the past so if you had a Bodog Poker account a couple years ago it is worth taking to time to create a new Bovada Poker account. The software isn’t completely different but neither is it completely the same. Here is a guide to some of the upgrades:

• Anonymous tables – This new feature has been praised and criticized in equal measure. As you likely know there are web sites that track your history at real money poker tables. The information collected by these sites can be used by skilled players to gain a small edge. Knowing how someone plays and how often they win without ever playing them is certainly a big plus in my book. At Bovada Poker’s anonymous tables your username will not be displayed, which prevents people from collecting and/or using previously collected data about and/or on you to gain this edge. Bovada Poker displays your seat number instead of your username.  There has been a lot of debate over this new feature but many recreational poker players feel that it will level the playing field against the serious grinders that use hand history data sites.
• Rabbit Cam – Bovada Poker is one of the few online poker sites to offer the Rabbit Cam feature. If you bet and everyone folds you can see which cards would have been dealt had someone called your bet. You may have seen this done while watching poker on TV.  I think that it is a pretty cool feature.
• Blackjack – Bovada poker’s software allows poker players to play Blackjack. Not many US poker sites feature built-in casino games so this is a very cool improvement.
• Play At More tables – You can play at up to 20 tables simultaneously at Bovada Poker. This is a big leap from the old Bodog Poker software.

U.S. Friendly Deposit Options At Bovada Poker

Many US poker players have trouble making deposits these days. Most US citizens at Bovada Poker use debit and credit cards to fund their accounts. Bovada Poker is the only major US poker site to offer 24/7 telephone support ( 1-888-263-0000) so you can find out if you are able to make a successful deposit before you even create an account. This is a big plus for me because I personally hate signing up at a new poker room only to find out that I cannot make a deposit. This is a great time saver.

Spread Betting At Tradefair

Tradefair represents the next generation of online spread betting sites. They feature a wide range of tools and guides for beginners including the following:

• The Little Black Book (Vol. 1 & 2) – This is part of TradeFair’s £100 sign-up bonus. You will receive the best spread betting guide for beginners.
• Autochartist – This tool is not just for beginners but it will definitely help you spot chart patterns in a wide range of markets.
• Economic Calendar – This calendar will keep you informed on all of the major upcoming financial events.
• Online Spread Betting Articles – The Tradefair web site features a large number of beginners to expert spread betting articles. This includes everything from rules to tips to a spread betting glossary.
• Spread Betting Demo – You can create a free demo account at Tradefair and try it before you risk any of your own capital. This will enable you to place test bets and track how much you would have won or lost if they had been real.

The £100 bonus can be claimed by making an initial deposit of £30 or more and placing four trades within the first 30 days. Tradefair also features a mobile betting platform that will help you stay informed about important news in real time and place spread bets on the go.

Spread Betting At Capital Spreads

Capital Spreads has been a leader in the online spread betting industry since 2003. They virtually pioneered online spread betting and they enable users to work with the largest number of markets available online. They have won numerous awards for their financial betting service and are widely considered as the largest and best spread betting company. They also offer many tools and guides for spread bettors and they are currently giving out £100 bonuses to new spread bettors. If you have friends that may be interested in online spread betting you can earn up to £200 each by getting them to sign up at Capital Spreads.

BetOnline Mobile Sportsbook – U.S. Bettors Welcome

The BetOnline mobile sportsbook is very simple and easy to use. You do not need a fancy $200-$300 smartphone to visit their mobile betting area. Once you log in you will be taken to a betting menu. This menu includes the various types of bets that you can make at BetOnline. This includes straight bets, parlays, prop bets, futures, action reverse, teaser bets and more. You can also view pending bets, check your sports betting balance and search by rotation number. BetOnline is the fastest growing U.S sportsbook, poker room and casino. Mobile sports bettors can place wagers on every major American sport and some popular international sports. U.S. sports bettors are flocking to BetOnline because they are the fastest paying bookmaker on the market today. This sportsbook gives American bettors more cashout options than any other online bookmaker and many of them take a few days or less. Americans typically have a very difficult time funding their sports betting accounts but BetOnline is also the easiest mobile sportsbook to deposit at. These two qualities have made this sports book extremely popular amongst bettors from the USA.

JustBet Mobile Sportsbook – $10 In Free Mobile Bets

JustBet is another popular mobile sportsbook for sports bettors from the USA. The mobile betting platform at JustBet is designed for Blackberries, iPhones and Android devices but many other mobile devices will work just as well. JustBet has a cool promo running exclusively for new mobile sports bettors. You can receive $10 in free bets when you take advantage of the mobile interface. This interface allows you to quickly place bets, check stats in real time and check on the odds you have of winning your bet. JustBet accepts bets on professional American football, baseball, basketball, hockey and several less common sports. They also offer excellent lines on NCAA college football and basketball.