Playing Real Money Texas Hold'em

Once your comfortable with the game of Texas Hold’em you may at some point consider playing for real money. This article is meant to help beginner’s through the transition from play money to real money Texas Hold’em. I remember back in 2003 playing my first play money tournament on PokerRoom.com and eventually deciding that I wanted to give real money games a try about 6 months later once I had gotten the swing of things.

Best Real Money Poker Sites Online 2011

Back then I didn’t know much about playing real money poker however over the years I’ve learned the ins and outs which I will try to share with you here to answer any of the questions you may have about real money poker.

Real Money Poker Basics

First things first, you need to choose which poker site you want to start playing at – chances are you’ve already checked out their software in play money mode so if that’s the case great, but if you are unsure of which site to sign-up at check out our Texas Hold’em poker sites page that will give you some tips of selecting a good poker room. Once you’ve chosen your room, your going to need to figure out which poker deposit method you’re going to use to load funds onto the site. There are a number of different ones to choose from depending on your location and what’s easiest for you as a player – we’ve reviewed most in our poker deposit methods section.

Depositing Money – Once you’ve download the poker site’s software and created a real money account you’ll want to navigate to the cashier where the deposits and withdrawals take place. Here you’ll find a number of different methods for putting funds onto the poker site. Most poker rooms have minimum deposits depending on the method you select which can range from $5 – $50 depending on the site. For the lowest deposit minimums I’d recommend Titan Poker which has a number of options that allow for $5 minimum deposits. Once you’ve selected a deposit method and it’s been approved, you’re ready to begin playing at the real money poker tables.

Withdrawing Money – Hopefully once you’ve won some money at the tables you’ll be looking to withdraw and cash out from the site. To do this, go back to the cashier again and select withdrawal entering the method and amount you would like to withdraw from your poker account. Some of the common withdrawal methods include paper check, one of the many e-wallet solutions or for large withdrawals wire transfer payment.

If you are trying to withdraw from some US poker sites you may only have a few options available however for other players there should be lots of options for you to withdraw your funds. The best site I can recommend if you are looking for the widest range of banking options is definitely PokerStars.com since they are the largest room and tend to have a stronghold on the best processors in the industry. The only other major things you need to know about withdrawals is that some sites won’t allow you to withdraw until 48 hours after your deposit was made. Once your withdrawal has been made you’ll be looking at a turnaround of 3 – 21 days depending on the site.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below I’ve written some common questions and answers that I’ve gotten from new real money players. I’ll try to update this with any new questions I hear from friends but this should give a solid overview of the basic topics.

Q. How Do I Join A Real Money Poker Site?
Joining a real money poker site is really simple, simply find the poker room that you want to sign-up at using a search engine or review website and then visit the official website of the poker room. From there they will walk you through downloading their software and provide instructions on creating a new real money account.

Q. How Do I Deposit Real Money?
Download the poker software from the site you want to play at and then open the cashier to see what deposit methods are offered. Create an account with one of the available options and follow instructions to deposit.

Q. How Do I Join Real Money Games & Tournaments?
Each poker room will outline within their software which games are real money and which games are for play money. Scroll down until you find the real money games and limits you want then double click to open the table. Click on an open seat at the table, load up the amount of chips you want from your balance and being playing.

Q. What Is The Best Option For Real Money?
This is a highly subjective question and will depend a lot on your personal tastes, however I personally enjoy both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker since they have the most players, biggest tournaments and juiciest cash games.

Q. What Limit Should I Start Out Playing?
Once again this is a very broad question but you should look to play at limits that make sense within your given bankroll when you start playing. Most “experts” recommend having 100 times the big blind in your bankroll to ensure you can endure the swings of playing poker, however most players start out with less than this when they play. The best advice I can give is to start small and only move up limits once you can continually beat the current limit you are playing. If you move up and find it too difficult, don’t be ashamed to move back down.

Q. Which Real Money Poker Sites Accept US Players?
This is a pretty common question from American poker players – we have a page on US poker sites however the major rooms that accept US players are PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker. There are a few others that also accept people from the United States but those are the largest sites I’d recommend.