I was first lead to this topic after seeing multiple sites claim to be the first purveyor of web cam poker. As of May 20, 2011 there are 3 companies on the first page claiming that honor. Clearly, someone isn’t right. I scoured Google and the Way Back Machine looking for anything related to web cam poker and it turns out that the pioneers of live web cam poker are long defunct sites from several years ago. The links to archive.org are snapshots of a website from a past date. These sites may appear broken to some extent but archive.org is the only record available and the links are necessary to establish when a particular event took place.
Timeline
- June 2006: Pharaoh’s Poker Palace begins to beta test web cam test poker – never makes it out of beta, entire site folds in 2008
- July 2006: JacksnQueens.com advertises web cam poker but never launches
- February 2007: PlayWin Poker launches the first real money web cam poker tables, complete with voice chat
- 2007: VegasBulldog advertises a paid membership web cam poker site in Bluff Magazine, never makes it to launch
- 2008: Poker54 opens a paid membership web cam poker room.
- 2010: FacePokerLive launches real money web cam poker
- February 2011: Pokerview launches web cam poker on pre-existing network, Everleaf
- Late February 2011: 888Poker creates PokerCam tables for their large poker network
The Very Beginning
The first reference to the concept of a webcam poker site is a post from a programmer wondering out loud about the possibility in 2004. While not a web cam enabled poker site, one enterprising young lady in 2005 found a way to make money for poker by using her web cam. In the same year an Irish casino called Dublinbet was offering live video stream of a dealer dealing various casino games that you could wager real money on. Since this article is about webcam poker and not casino games, I didn’t research any further to confirm that DublinBet was the first to do so, but it is worth noting that the use of web cams in online gambling predates use in poker.
PharoahsPokerPalace.com
A non-webcam beta table
In June 2006 an Egyptian themed online casino called Pharaoh’s Poker Palace became the first poker room to offer web cam poker. They even offered a free web cam if you signed up! A poker blogger wrote a detailed critique of the idea and the casino itself. The part about sharing 48% of the profits with the players does sound very suspect. It was “coming soon” at the time of his post, but judging by the posting history of a Pharaoh’s Poker Palace representative here and this user post, web cam poker was functional that fall, although only in play money testing. I can’t confirm whether the real money web cam games actually launched ever, as the forum posting trail dies in early 2007 still in beta, and there are no Wayback Machine snapshots beyond 2006. There are complaints about poker payouts from August 2007, so some form of real money poker was offered, but I can’t determine if it was webcam poker. Shortly thereafter, in 2008, Pharaoh’s Poker Palace finally goes under.
JacksnQueens.com
Pharaoh’s Poker Palace seems to have had a particularly short and troubled history, but it did spawn a competitor with an even shorter and more troubled history. One month after Pharaoh’s announcement, a Panamanian company named JNQ Global Inc., announced intentions to create a competing web cam poker site. The JacksnQueens site has an “Under Construction” banner throughout its history in the Wayback Machine and this site confirms that it was vaporware.
PlayWinPoker.com
PlayWinPoker (no link, as they have a nasty pop-up prompting a software download), an Indian poker room that had offered voice chat for some time prior, added webcam functionality to their poker client in Feb 2007.
Screenshot from February 2007
This seems to be the first truly functioning real money poker client with a web cam feature. I can’t find any firsthand accounts from players, but there are affiliates promoting the site and the “Payment Options” page mentions Netteller no longer being available to US customers. This indicates that PlayWin Poker was actively taking payments less than a month before launching web cam functionality. That means that PlayWin almost certainly gets the prize for first online poker site to implement live streaming video via web cam for real money. Unlike the previously mentioned poker rooms, this one still has a functioning website, although I can’t get the software to work. I e-mailed support and they responded within 30 minutes(!) saying that the server was temporarily down and that “We are currently not offering any real money poker, you can play for free if you like.”
VegasBulldog.com
Yet another company decided to take a stab at making a web cam poker site work in 2007. VegasBulldog, later Gray’s Poker, advertised a paid membership site that would be UIGEA compliant and legal for US customers. This operation also promised a free webcam but never ended up delivering on the promise. According to a blog post (complete with magazine scan ad) from 2008, this site never materialized.
Poker54.com
That takes us to January of 2008 when Poker54 launched a paid membership poker site that was billed as the “First Audio Visual WEBCAM POKER technology that enables both audio and video webcam Texas Holdem experience.” This appears not to be true as Playwinpoker offered voice chat in 2006. Much like its predecessor, Pharaoh’s Poker, Poker54 has a marketing strategy related to profit sharing, not poker play. At Poker54 you can join a MLM scheme to hopefully get lots of poker players “below” you in the pyramid. The website is still live, but it is unclear whether there is any traffic.
FacePokerLive.com
Jump to 2010 and Tom Horn Enterprises, a Slovakian company, announces it is launching the “world’s first online poker room with integrated webcams.” FacePokerLive certainly isn’t the first, but if all the others are defunct or are paid membership sites, I suppose it isn’t that bad to say. This client is accessible via web browser and doesn’t require a download, which is definitely a first for web cam poker.
Pokerview.com
Real money webcam table
Pokerview comes into the picture in February 2011. Their website lists a copyright date dating back to 2003 and the domain info shows this is theoretically possible. They too claim to be the first web cam poker site. They blocked the Wayback Machine so I can’t be 100% sure that they didn’t offer web cam poker a long time ago, but considering the official twitter mentioning a “launch” in February 2011 it is safe to say they are far from the first. Pokerview’s major significance in the evolution of web cam poker is that they are the first to be on a reputable (albeit small) network – Everleaf Gaming. This means that many of the tables don’t involve webcams, but it prevents the site from being a ghost town at odd times of the day.
888poker.com
The biggest company to enter the web cam poker market, 888 Holdings, also joined the market in February 2011. The 888 Holdings VP of Poker billed the addition as a social opportunity, “Our new Pokercam tables offer our customers a place to meet, play and socialize and are a true indication of our commitment to play different.”
888Poker, also known as Pacific Poker, is the tenth largest international poker network. Their ‘PokerCam Tables’ are consequently the most active and successful webcam poker tables on the Internet as of May 2011.
The Future
Only time will tell whether web cam poker becomes main stream or remains a sideshow, but there seems to be a market demand for web cam poker at the lower stakes. Now that 888, a major player in the online poker world, spreads real money web cam games, it seems like it is here to stay. The real question is, as Internet connections become faster and web cam ownership more prevelent, what other major networks will add their own web cam poker tables?