When It Comes to Poker, Should You Go to Vegas, or Should You Play Online?

If you love to play poker (and maybe even want to win some money), you can try your hand at online casino games; they're easy to get into and you can play wherever you have access to a personal computer, whether it be your home or office -- and you can do so 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you compare playing on your computer to playing in Vegas, of course you'll find several differences.

An online casino, for example, will let you play with pretend money. However, in Vegas, you don't get to practice and you have to play by betting your own hard-earned cash. Online, you can play the practice runs and then begin to play with real money by depositing it into your account.

All kinds of online casino games are available, just like those you play in Vegas. For example, you can play craps, slots, blackjack, or Texas hold 'em online just as well as you can play them at Vegas. Vegas, of course, can't be beat for atmosphere, but if you simply want to play in the comfort of your own home, online casinos give you the ability to do that.

You don't have to travel or spend extra money doing so, and you can gamble as little or as much as you want to. From your personal computer, you can play online 24 hours a day if you want to. Online casinos usually also offer what they call "free rolls" in lieu of real money. These types of games usually start with a lot of players, but if you're good at playing poker, you can win seats to higher money games, and you can actually also win real cash to fund your money account. A lot of players do start by playing with "pretend" money, move to the free rolls, and then start playing with real money.

If you play online, you can have the chance to win a lot of money without actually investing any of yours; again, this is something Vegas just doesn't do. Many people have become good poker players and have since decided to make poker playing their careers. And, they started to play poker through the online casinos.

Many of these people also never travel for poker unless they go to money tournaments they've won a seat for. These tournaments are often in Vegas, but that's often the first time these poker professionals have actually been there; and again, they did learn how to play online. Because of the online casino games, those who want to learn to play poker can do so easily.

Most of these sites tell you how to play the different games if you don't know how, and the "play money" feature lets you practice without having to worry that you're going to lose any of your hard-earned cash, at least to start. Of course, that would never be true in Vegas. That said, of course, you should go to Vegas at least once if you really like to play poker. The atmosphere can't be beat and it's something that can't be described. With the charged atmosphere and constantly "ching"ing machines, there is no other way to experience that kind of excitement.

It's also different to play with real chips versus playing on the computer, because on the computer, the casino simply tallies chip points and you pick a dollar amount to bet. That's unlike having to actually pick up the chips and throw them into the middle of the table at Vegas, and may be an experience you want to have. Simply, live play is truly different than online play, because of that. So should you play in Vegas or should you play online?

There are advantages to both; perhaps you could start with playing online and then once you get good at what you do, take a trip to Vegas and try your hand there.