Brick-and-mortar casinos have been glad to get the business, but poker isn't as lucrative as other table games. Players are battling each other and not the house. In poker, casinos make their money by taking a "rake" from each bet or charging players by the hour. There's a limit to how much they can make per table even as the stakes go up.

"Now, if I could only get rid of that dealer," the casino operators probably thought, "I'd make a lot more money." And so they did. They're still a small minority, but digital poker tables are springing up from coast to coast and on the high seas.

The question from a player's standpoint is, which is better? Sorry, dealers. These electronic tables are going to put you out of business. I like the PokerPro tables.

A PokerTek PokerPro table is the size of a standard poker table. It has a large flat-panel monitor at the center and smaller, touch-sensitive monitors in front of every player. Hold your hands over the cards, as a "live" player would, and they're revealed to only you. Your chips are displayed as soon as you insert the casino equivalent of a debit card into a slot adjacent to the monitor. The game then plays exactly as it does when an actual human is dealing.

One of the best features of the table is its fast pace. You play more hands, because the digital table doesn't have to shuffle cards or change decks or make change. Unlike live play, there is a visible clock running through each bet of every hand, which speeds the players up. There are no errors. Cards are never inadvertently flipped or mistakenly thrown into the muck. You are also not allowed to bet out of turn or in the wrong amount.

With no dealer, there is no one to tip. What this really means is that you're also benefiting from the casino operator's reduced cost.

One poker room manager said to me he hadn't seen a single argument since the digital tables went in. There was no longer anything to dispute. Every intention and motion was now crystal clear.

When I tried the table out, I did encounter a recalcitrant touch screen that didn't always understand what I wanted and forced me to repeat... and repeat... and repeat, my action.

I suspect over time, these tables will be used to create immense national or international tournaments with thousands of players and huge payouts. Right now, they're just going to make dealers worry a lot.