The world of online gaming often proves to be surprisingly small. Sure, certain trends may come and go once in a while, but really only the three major pillars of online gaming remain standing strong as ever - Casinos, Sports Betting and Poker.
For a Poker player the first often involves too little skill and too much pure luck - as exciting as it may be for some, not much thought goes into pulling a lever on a slot machine. Sports betting is all well and good but if you're not really a sports buff, following all the football action is probably not your idea of a good time.
Without paying a lot of attention to player trade offs, game results and team management, sport betting too turns into a game of luck.
This leaves only poker, a timeless game that mixes skill and intelligence with a moderate dose of luck. But after a while even poker becomes a thing of habit, after all, all successful poker players simply play the odds to minimize the effects of pure luck.
So what's a poker player to do after the thrill of the game is gone? How can a poker player apply their analytical and strategic skills to an exciting new environment? Meet Forex, where poker players can use their skills to analyze the movements of currencies to make bigger profits without constantly paying money to the pot! Although Forex is officially categorized as financial trading, it's been taking the world of online gaming by storm for the past year or so.
Why? Because Forex is a legitimate and exciting way to invest money instead of waging it. The Forex market revolves around 8 major currencies that are traded one against the other, so it's not too complicated to grasp the entire picture of the market at any point in time. This is only one of the properties of the Forex market that make it so attractive to poker players.
Another important aspect is that Forex trading is based on leverage. Leverage is a kind of loan Forex dealers give their traders so they can really capitalize on currency movements. With an investment of just $100 Forex traders can control up to $40,000 thanks to leverage.
This means that there's no prerequisite of a large capital in order to get started. All you need is a good head for analyzing and strategizing - an asset that poker players already have in their arsenal. And, similarly to poker, Forex is also traded 24 hours a day which makes it a stand out from the other financial markets where traders hold their breath waiting for the bell to ring.
With Forex, whenever you can assume a currency going up or down, you can just go ahead and trade. If you're nervous about understanding the rules of this exciting marketplace - don't be! Today most Forex platforms offer plenty of guides, tutorials and helpful forums where you can quickly learn all you need to become a Forex trader.
One Forex trading platform that stands out as the easiest to get started with is eToro (www.etoro.com) which was designed with the novice trader in mind. This platform offers a visual and user friendly interface with a community element that poker players are so used to.
At eToro you can also find plenty of video tutorials and Forex guides for beginners. Most importantly, with this platform you can get your first taste of Forex trading with a free demo account, or with a deposit of just $50 (the same as the poker minimum). Today more and more poker players are making their first forays into Forex trading, with many of them achieving long term successful results due to their pre-acquired analytical skills.
Over the past few years Forex has proven that rather than being a temporary fad, it's here to stay, and we can now safely predict that as time goes by Forex will become a permanent topic of discussion in poker chat-rooms.
- the eToro team