After the way poker exploded onto the Internet in 2003-2004 a natural thing to wonder is "what will be the next poker? "What other skill gambling game could replicate the widespread interest poker holds? Online backgammon clearly has many dissimilarities to online poker, the key one being backgammon is not a multi-player game, but at the same time, many of the skills and challenges that make poker popular carry over to backgammon. Not surprisingly, online backgammon games for money are readily available.

Some strategically great poker players are also great backgammon players. Like poker, backgammon can be played a straightforward, simplistic way: roll the dice, move the checkers. But also like poker, there are layers of skill that can be peeled back to reveal a much deeper, more complex game.


The objective of backgammon is to move fifteen checkers into your home section of the backgammon board, then remove them from the board before your opponent achieves that same goal. Since both you and your opponent have the same goal (get all their checkers off the board to win the game), and you both want to protect your pieces so they don't get bumped back to the beginning while also attacking your opponents pieces to send them back to the start, what you have is the same balancing act that you have in poker -- risk versus reward, caution versus aggression. And, like poker, you also have random luck involved as the extent of the moves you or your opponent can make are determined by the rolling of separate dice. No matter how skillful an opponent, any player with a basic grasp of the game could beat that skillful player simply from the random luck of the skilled player making a series of unlucky rolls of the dice.

But like poker, while luck can influence results, over the long run skillfully analyzing the board and your opponent's ability and game strategy will have a far greater impact than dumb luck.

Besides the one-on-one nature, backgammon differs from poker in that all game information is in plain view, complete. The only things hidden are the thoughts of the players. In poker, player's have hidden information: their own cards. While this might appear to be a skill drawback about the game to a poker player, another difference is that backgammon games are far longer than poker hands. In any backgammon game you make a relatively huge number of decisions. All the results of your decisions can be seen by your opponent, but the sheer volume of decisions coupled with the much greater number of random incidents (you roll the dice far more than a random flop or turn card is placed on a poker table) leads to multi-level strategy, and even multiple back up strategies.

While in one-on-one poker most players play most of the hands, backgammon is constant action. You are always rolling, and moving, and adapting to changing circumstances. Action junkies who need four online poker game screens open to keep their attention should enjoy online backgammon games.