Looking for great online poker rooms is similar to looking for the best online casinos, but there are some very specific differences that you need to keep in mind.

For one thing, many ‘serious’ online poker players don’t even want to think about online casinos. To them, poker is a game of skill played by real people against other real people, and online casinos are simply single-player videogames that sometimes pay out. We won’t waste time pointing out all the arguments in favor of online casinos; we’re just happy to have so many options for both kinds of online gambling.

You might think that playing with other people would limit your choice of game times and variety, but nothing could be further from the truth. You can log into Carbon Poker at 3:15am on a Thursday and find an Omaha Hi-Lo tournament with limits that perfectly suit your needs. You could visit Doyle’s Room and find the Texas Dolly himself behind the button at the most unexpected hours.

You will probably notice that online poker site bonuses seem much smaller than online casino bonuses, and work slightly differently. At an online casino, you have access to those hundreds or thousands of free bonus dollars immediately, and can play slots for days or weeks before even touching any of your own deposit money. For poker rooms, the bonuses rarely get above the hundreds (if that high) and you get more of the bonus the more (and more often) that you wager in ring games or tournaments.

Also, poker promotions tend to be more geared toward various types of tournaments and special events. Sure, there are plenty of online slots tournaments to be found, but at any quality poker site you’ll probably be able to get into a tournament any time of day…and the ‘special’ tournaments come on a daily or weekly basis.

Plus, nobody has ever gone on to win the world championship of roulette from playing on an online casino site (is there even a world championship of roulette?). With satellites, you can take your poker skills from the most obscure online poker room all the way to real-life stardom — just ask Chris Moneymaker!