For fun, fast-paced, and exciting gameplay, you probably turn to digital racing. After all, these characteristics make it one of the biggest video game genres in history, right alongside shooter and action games.
Its continuing popularity today—over two decades after its heyday in the early 2000s—lies in its constantly improving mix of immersive graphics and competitive features.
As a result, Exploding Topics reports that over 1.14 billion active gamers, many of whom are aged between 21 and 35, regularly play racing games.
This appeal is one of the biggest reasons you can now find racing elements even in non-racing titles, including Mad Max and, of course, Grand Theft Auto. They’ve even made their way to online poker, which itself is one of iGaming’s most popular genres.
After all, racing and online poker have a lot in common. They both skyrocketed in popularity in the noughties, and they continue to appeal to young adult players today.
Notably, many enthusiasts also prefer online poker because it can be played up to five times faster than live games, helping it match the fast-paced action found in racing games.
Given all these similarities, it’s clear that racing can be a great match for online poker sites looking to bring their offerings to the next level. That’s why Americas Cardroom became one of the first to do so with the help of emerging technology.
Here’s more on the site’s history in innovation and how that led it to create Poker Races, a unique promotion that runs on groundbreaking AI software.
Americas Cardroom’s history of online poker innovation
What’s currently the biggest online poker site in the US has a rich history that traces all the way back to the early 2000s, when it debuted as the Winning Poker Network’s (WPN) flagship site. Americas Cardroom maintains that standing today, allowing it to boast decades of experience in online poker innovation. For instance, it currently provides the most rewarding Welcome Bonus in the industry at up to $2,000.
The site also offers a particularly vast tournament schedule and casual poker games available 24/7. Among the most popular is its Venom series, with the likes of the Dual Venom and Venom Fever tourneys still going strong today.
Venom’s appeal among the online operator’s large user base was strengthened by the fact that it was one of the first to accept cryptocurrency in 2014. Now, it can facilitate transactions with more than 50 different tokens.
That allowed Venom to earn a Guinness World record for the highest crypto prize pool payout in online poker at over $1.05 million in Bitcoin. Now, the series continues to offer guarantees of up to $12 million.
Given its experience in successfully leveraging emerging technologies like crypto and the blockchain, it’s no surprise that Americas Cardroom achieved another industry first with its AI-powered racing promotion.
Poker Races and its groundbreaking AI software
The reason why Poker Races combines poker, racing, and AI so successfully is that Americas Cardroom has prior experience using all three. Aside from its long history of offering poker games on the internet, it also boasts a racing promotion called The Beast.
Introduced as a replacement to the WPN’s popular Bad Beat Jackpot in 2013, it used racing elements to give more of its players opportunities to win larger rewards. Held weekly, The Beast has given out over $35 million in rewards to date.
The site is also popular for its AI features. To ensure the fair and secure gameplay sought by its users, Americas Cardroom recently began leveraging a machine learning program to quickly detect and block suspicious activity, including the use of virtual machines and real-time screen-sharing tools.
It also showcased its proficiency in using AI through the launch of the Bounty Hunter poker scratch card promotion. Here, each scratch card represents an AI player in a poker event. Users earn bounties for each opponent the player knocks out of the tournament.
The experiences the operator has gained from these initiatives merge to create Poker Races. After buying in at a low, fixed price, players can choose or be assigned to five AI racers and watch how they fare against other opponents’ teams.
Following a quick race, owners of the winning teams can immediately advance to the tournament’s final table. The whole process takes just two minutes, allowing Poker Races to effectively eliminate the “tedious” parts of early gameplay.
Americas Cardroom’s groundbreaking software further allows each AI racer to exhibit unique styles of play, making outcomes even more unpredictable and exciting.
By combining such racing elements with traditional tournament structures, this innovation effectively uses one of today’s most popular video game genres to attract players of all skill levels and truly take competitive online poker to the next level.
Keep browsing Drivingmad to discover the best racing games on the internet—and learn more about every video game genre under the sun.