The Best Online Casinos to Play Poker for Real Money

One of the best things in an online casino table game is when you finally have the chance to bet big on something that you know is going to pay off. With online poker, real money can start to fill your casino account quickly, as long as you’re using some form of strategy and skill, with a little bit of luck.

You can play poker online for money; it’s no secret. And with poker, you’re not playing against the dealer, so there’s no house edge to speak of. You’re playing against other players who have been dealt their cards. If you’re able to play your cards right, and execute your strategies, and count your outs, you’ll find that online poker, when played right, can lead you to the real money.

Reviewing Real Money Poker Sites

At Casino Kenners, we have a team of online casino experts who play poker all the time. Our team goes from site to site, signing up, making deposits, playing and pulling out their winnings. The reason they do this is so that we can create this site for our users.

We are always on the lookout for the best places to play, and we know that you want to spend more time playing and less time worrying about your money or your safety. That’s why we do it. We deposit our own real money to play poker, and then report back to our users on the site, as soon as they have met our strict guidelines for what we deem to be a great casino.

We look for:

• Access to different software providers, offers tons of games.
• Casinos that accept SA players.
• Round-the-clock customer service and support.
• Banking options that you know and trust.
• Bonuses and promotions to benefit poker players.

Different Types of Poker

If you’re new to online poker, then you’ll want to know exactly what’s out there. You can make money with online poker at the best online poker casino sites all you want, but if you don’t know what you’re in for, you might find it a little challenging to get going.

All of the sites that we list on our page have got South Africa’s best online poker casino sites for real money, and they have a wide variety of different types of poker. We’ve detailed them below for you:

Texas Hold’em

Hold’em is the most popular form of online poker, and you’ll likely be able to find it at most online casinos. If you want to play online poker for real money, then you’ll find more players here than anywhere else. You get two hold cards and five community cards, and you need to make the best poker hand out of the best five cards. It has several rounds of betting, including small blind and big blind bets.

Five-Card Draw

With Five-Card, each player gets five cards with the option of replacing some after the first phase. You’ll find that the hands are a lot less extravagant in Five-Card Draw.

Omaha High/Low

In Omaha, players will combine two of their four-hole cards and three of the five community cards to make two separate five-card high and low hands.

Seven-Card Stud

Seven-Card Stud will be where players create the best five-card hand from the seven cards dealt with them. This was once the most popular version of the game until Texas Hold’em came around.

Starting Hands in Poker

Since real money poker is a game of strategy and very little luck, you’ll often be able to tell how well you’re doing as soon as the cards have been dealt with. If you get off-suited, lower cards that aren’t anywhere near a pair, then you’re likely to have a bad hand. Some players will end up limping to the flop, which is often a sure-fire way to lose money.

Some strong starting hands in poker, are pocket pairs. If you’re able to get a pair of Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks or Tens, you’re in a powerful position. If you can’t manage pairs, getting high suited cards are the next strongest starter hands. From there, if they aren’t suited, but still high cards, such as Ace / Queen or King /Jack, you’re also in a great spot.

You should try to avoid going big into the pot if you have something like pocket Threes because any kind of hit on the flop by an opponent with a high card will likely beat you unless you flop Three of a Kind.

Odds of the Pot in Poker

Understanding pot odds in online poker is another essential aspect of being able to take your chances and win when the opportunity presents itself. If you’re holding a pair of pockets before the flop has come up, you don’t have an excellent chance of getting a third card to make Three of a Kind.

Knowing that there are 52 cards in the deck, and every player at the table is holding two, your odds are 7.5 to one. If you’re not going to be able to make more than those odds on your current bet, it’s not worth you playing. Thus the pot odds aren’t good enough for you to call.

After the flop comes up, and it doesn’t hit any of your pocket hole cards, your pot odds go up because there are fewer cards to come out of the deck. There, your odds maybe a little better, but you’ll still need to work out whether or not it’s worth you betting.

Understanding Table Position

There are two table positions to play, late and early. If you’re playing in a late position, you have a bit of an advantage to see what all the other players are doing. If a lot of the players have folded, you may punish the remaining players in the game with a raise.
In an early position on the table, you can’t take as many risks playing weaker hands because a player can re-raise you from a late position, which could result in you having to fold the bet you’ve already put in, or put more money in to match it.

Poker Terminology

To make your experience a little easier, you should understand basic poker terminology too. You’ll likely hear these words in every single game that you play, so it’s important to understand what each one means.

All-in – Putting all your chips on the line on a single hand.
Big Blind – The full ante bet before the cards are dealt.
Bluff – When player bets or raises without having the hand to back it up.
Burn – The dealer will “burn” a card before the flop is dealt, discarding it from play.
Call – If you call, you’re betting the same as what another player just bet or raised.
Check – You don’t bet with a check, but stay in hand. Also signified by knocking.
Flop – The flop is the first three community cards.
Kicker – When you face off with pairs or two pairs, you have a high-card kicker when hands are matched.
Muck – Throw away your hand without revealing your hole cards.
Outs – These are the winning combinations you can still make from the remaining cards in the deck.
Raise – To raise the stakes higher than the original bet.
Rake – This is the percentage of the pot taken by the house.
River – The river card is the fifth and last community card for the table.
Side Pot – The side pot is an additional pot that is created after multiple players have gone all-in and cannot match bets.
Small Blind – The small blind is the smaller bet made before the cards are dealt.
Turn – The turn is the fourth community card to be played after the flop.

Frequently Asked Questions