Poker, as we know it today, started to spread since the early 19th century, when it was mainly played on Mississippi riverboats. But the games that are the likely ancestors of poker, such as the French “Poque”, the German “Pochen” and the Persian “As Nas” had even been around for a couple of hundred years longer.

In the history of poker, the game experienced a lot of changes and many different variants were invented. The 52-card deck had been introduced around 1840. In the early years poker was often played with a 20-card deck.

Some of the most popular variants, such as Texas Holdem and Omaha, made their debut in the poker world only 80 years respectively 30 years ago.

These days, poker is probably the most popular card game worldwide. Due to televised poker tournaments and the boom of Internet poker, the number of people playing poker has grown massively. Everyone wants to play poker now and at XcitingGames it is even more fun!