Ireland has always been a gambling nation, with sports gambling a major part of many people’s lives, but there is now a different gambling option for us to enjoy in the form of casino gambling online. Our major cities have of course mostly had real casinos for many years but the advent of online casinos has brought casino gambling to a much wider section of the population. Online poker gambling in particular has now become a major gambling pastime in Ireland, with the Texas Hold’em poker format a firm favourite. There are of course a variety of other versions of poker gambling available online but serious advocates of gambling on poker invariably choose to play the Texas Hold’em format above all others. Texas Hold’em is a version of poker which uses what are termed community cards, in this case five cards which are dealt into the middle of the table and are available to all the players to use with their own two dealt cards to form their showdown hand. We have explained the rules of Texas Hold’em poker on our casino games pages, but in principle it works like this. Each player is dealt two cards face down, followed by the first betting round. The five community cards are then dealt face up into the centre of the table, one at a time with each card followed by a further betting round. The attraction of Texas Hold’em gambling is a combination of the possibility of better hands with seven cards available to each player, and the multiple betting rounds which inevitably lead to bigger pots. Whilst there is no doubt that gambling on Texas Hold’em poker is exciting, we should offer a word of warning to inexperienced players new to gambling on poker. Texas Hold’em is a poker format which requires both skill and experience and is not a game for gamblers on a limited budget. Remember the cost of staying in the hand always exceeds the initial minimum table stake.