RichMond Gaming Blog

Exploring the Available Options
A simple option will be to transfer the amount directly from your bank accounts to your online poker accounts. In some banks, this type of transfer may trigger security alerts; thus care must be taken to double check with the concerned authorities. If you are not comfortable with this option, you can make use of the financial service providers operating online. Though PayPal is a reliable source, it was legally banned from dealing money with online poker sites. You can check out other options at neteller and firepay which are common choices among online poker players. You have to understand that there will be an initial delay as these financial service providers verify the credibility of your bank account and your identity.

Know the Terms and Conditions
It is important to understand the terms specified by the online poker sites and the financial providers to avoid any confusion or misinterpretations which may eventually lead to banning of your account. For instance, the limitations of the deposit amounts can be around $600 per day or $1,500 per week. Similarly, the financial service providers may verify your account by depositing a small amount and expecting your response via your email within a specified time period.

Currencies Issues
Though most of the live poker games allow the players to use their local currencies, a handful of them deal only with US dollars even if the players are not based in US. In general, there are two methods in which the currency issue can be dealt with.
The players are allowed to have the money in poker account in their local currency and are expected to convert it only when they enter or leave a game. In such a case, the players can be kept out of currency fluctuations as the exchange rates will not affect their money when they are not playing. Apart from this, most of the websites following this method allow the players to have the same exchange rates while they cash out of the game as when they bought in. This will ensure that the players do not lose significant amounts just because they enter and leave a game.

Tackling Currency Issues
Another method followed by US dollars-only websites is to request the players to convert the money when they deposit the amount in their online poker accounts. Some of the websites offer impressively lower premiums while converting the funds and this is an advantage to players who “tops up” his/her chip stack constantly.

For Beginners
First and foremost, you have to check the system requirements before finding one or more websites which conduct online poker games. The good news is that most of the online poker websites wish to please their customers and do not expect the latest system configurations which may limit the number of users. Here is a brief overview on few things that you need to check before downloading and installing the software available for playing online poker games.

System Requirements
Discussed here are the requirements as mentioned by few top poker sites: (recommended configuration is in italics)
Windows 2000 or XP, 64 MB or 128MB RAM, broadband or dial up connection, 266MHz or 400MHZ Pentium CPU, and 30 – 60 MB free disk space. In case of MAC system requirements, minimum Mac OS X 10.4 is recommended apart from G4 or G5 processor, 512MB RAM, and 30MB free space.

Connection Requirements
It is to be understood that your internet connection will inevitably influence the quality and speed of online poker games. Dial-up will be sufficient only for low quality plays while to experience high gaming quality, you need download speed of 256 Kbit/s and 64 Kbit/s upload speed. ADSL and cable connections will ensure least transmission interruptions.