Casino City's iGaming Pocket Directory - 2013 Edition

POKER Visit iGamingPocketDirectory.com for more information. 73 Sponsored by money so quickly they won’t stick around. Despite the imbalance in the poker ecology (or perhaps because of it), online poker rooms have rapidly embraced the latest innovation in online poker – fast-fold poker -- as a way to keep customers happy and increase revenue. The concept behind fast-fold poker is simple. Once a player folds his hand, he is automatically reseated at a table about to deal the cards. This eliminates the “dead” time between folding and a hand reaching its conclusion, and dramatically increases the number of hands per hour a player can take part in. Full Tilt Poker became the first online poker room to successfully introduce the concept in 2010. Since then, several rooms have followed suit. Relax Gaming launched Fast Poker in March of 2012. PokerStars launched Zoom Poker in May of 2012 (before it acquired Full Tilt). Microgaming launched Blaze Poker in May of 2012 as well. And bwin.party launched FastForward Poker in August of 2012. The influx of fast-fold poker technology has changed the online poker marketplace. Analysts estimate that about 25 percent of all online poker hands dealt are now fast- fold hands. So even as the competitive poker market struggles with some of its fundamentals, new innovations are taking hold and changing the nature of the game. POKER INDUSTRY OVERVIEW