"In the time it takes you to read this sentence, several hundred thousand people in the United States will have played a hand of poker. They are not gathered around green felt tables in casinos with live dealers and real cards. This vast number of players is online right now, on offshore websites playing at virtual tables, with virtual dealers. They play games including draw, hold-em, stud and Omaha.

The Internet facilitates the play, but all players are real people sitting in front of their computers. And all those people are breaking the law while sending their money offshore.

Internet poker, unlike blackjack, is a "non-banked" game with players playing against each other, not the casino. One player wins every hand; the dealer, or casino, never wins. The company running the game has no stake in the game other than to collect from 50 cents to $2 from every pot, just as in a live casino.

That may not seem like a lot of money, but some websites attract more than 200,000 players at any given time. On a recent weekday afternoon, the two largest poker sites had 420,000 active users. They both accept bets from U.S. players. At a conservative rate of 50 hands per hour per table, with more than 50,000 tables in play, the revenue to the website operator adds up very, very quickly.

In 1995 there were only 24 Internet gambling sites available. By 2006 that number had increased to more than 2,500 sites, including at least 532 offering Internet poker. A quick Google search for the term "internet poker" reveals just how easy it is to play poker on the Internet. A 2009 study by H2 Gaming Capital showed 10.9 million people in the United States play poker using the Internet. Nearly 2 million of those people live in California.

This is all occurring in spite of the fact that it is actually illegal to play poker on the Internet in the United States."

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