`How can you bet with cards like that?" says Mrs J. from Connecticut as she pockets her winnings. After winning six straight hands, she has effectively cleaned me out. If Mrs J. were sitting beside me she might have sensed my annoyance. But she's 3,000 miles away from me. We are facing off over the Net - for real dollars (see www.plantepoker.com).
Also at the table is Spieler from Kansas - who refuses to communicate - and Emma from Stoke who prefers to look on. I'm not addicted to gambling, but if I were, (see www.indenial.com), the Internet might not be the safest place for me.
Among the thousands of gaming sites (www.gaminglinks.com, for a less than comprehensive listing) there are more than 1,000 online casinos and this number is said to be growing by more than 10 a month.
No one knows how much money these sites are generating. But Meryll Lynch estimates the online gambling business to be worth between £3 and £5 billion. It predicts the industry will be worth £152 billion by 2015.
No wonder everybody's scrambling for a piece of the pie. You can enter these casinos using JAVA applets which run on your browser, or by downloading free software, the cost-conscious gambler can play offline. Most people say: how safe is it? Wouldn't people hesitate before giving their credit card details to a site called thegreek.com located somewhere in the Caribbean? Well, I did hesitate, but only briefly, as it was only for £30.
The answer is that it's as safe as any form of e-commerce. Many of the jurisdictions require that the licencee posts bonds of cash or insurance as part of the licence requirements. Your personal security (including credit card details and other personal information) is also guaranteed under licence agreements in many, if not all, jurisdictions.
A good rule is to make sure the site uses secure servers to conduct all transactions and that all the personal client information is held offline. Many also take out insurance against fraud. Some sites will accept cheques or bank drafts - however, you can end up paying a lot in transaction costs.
Many also ask if the games can be fixed. The poker ones certainly could be, although I found no evidence of this in all my surfing. It certainly would not be difficult for one person to play as two people, or for a group to relay information over a Net chat room or by phone to skew a game.
Yet virtual casinos appear to be making serious loot. It seems fair to ask why fix it if it ain't broke (literally). I admit that's not an answer. Nevertheless there's no reason to think online casinos are any more fixed than their noisy bricks-and-mortar counterparts. In fact, there is evidence they have bigger payout ratios because their overheads are much smaller.
If you're still not satisfied, you can always just play for fun - most virtual casinos allow you play with fake chips.
If casino games aren't your thing, there are thousands of traditional bookies online which offer betting on a spread of sports.
And there are unusual and fun ones. Hillary Clinton to be the next US president - a shooin at 14-1; and cannabis to be legalised for non-medical purposes in the UK before the end of the year at the short price of 6-1? Do they know something we don't? (See www.paddypower.com)
The Irish gambling industry accepts about £920 million annually, of which only 2 per cent is wagered online. It must be remembered Irish online gaming has been available for less than two years. The main Irish players are paddypower.com, luvbet.com, netbet.ie and newcomer, bananabet.com.
I am an unabashed horse man. I've enjoyed squandering quite a bit, by my standards. And so it was with the gambler's piquant mix of love and hate that I spoke to the high priest of Irish gambling, Paddy Power's managing director, Stewart Kenny. I considered lying prostrate before him and begging for my money back from years long passed, but thought better of it.
Kenny expects the online sector in Ireland to grow five-fold over the next three years. Paddypower.com generated £728,478 in sales from its 2,666 active customers in its first 10 weeks of trading to June 30th, 2000. The most recent figures are not fully compiled yet.
But will the vast potential of the online sector adversely affect the high street business? Kenny thinks not: "You get a different type of punter online." He cites a study saying cyberpunters are generally younger, more affluent and more technologically proficient than the folk in the shop. Another study he showed me says the average UK punter spends £8 in a shop and is likely to be male and from a "lower socioeconomic group". But online gamblers spend on average £80 and are in the top ABC1 social grouping.
Equally interesting is the significant number of women now betting online. This may not be surprising considering the image of the average betting shop. It is not seen as the most female-friendly environment. It is a market Kenny admits he did not envisage.
Significantly, Kenny says he pays out relatively more to his cyberpunters than his punters in the shops.
It appears there are three main advantages of betting online. First, the payout is better; second, you don't pay tax online; and third, most sites offer you an initial free bet. Sometimes this can be as much as £25 (bananabet.com)
When it comes to gambling, can you really beat the almost narcotic highs and terrifying lows of the shops? Immersed in dizzying second-hand smoke, you wade through losing dockets - that confetti of shattered hope - with sharp shrill bells signalling that the hare in Monmore is running? Could we really give all that up?
For now I am content to forgo the alluring bricks and mortar of the bookies for the virtual roulette table (www.casino-on- net.com) and practising my Spanish with Juguador no. 8.
After being up some £300, I'm now losing fast. You see, that's the thing about gambling online - the speed at which you can lose it all is remarkable.