The Rise in Mobile Poker

Times have changed, the way in which we communicate, how we get our news, read our email and spend our free time. We have gone from the basic home phone line, the newspaper, the TV to the home computer and now to the smartphone. Mobile devices have taken over in almost everything we do. Technology has advanced so much in such a short space of time that we can now have the power, speed and convenience of a home computer in our pockets. Business has had to change to keep up and Online Poker is no different in that it has to provide what the consumer is look for. With so much competition it's imperative that all bases are covered and that a full offering across all available platforms is on offer. Contrary to popular belief, online poker is still a growing market, and analysts GBGC forecast the real-money poker market will grow from $75 million in 2011, to $133 million by the end of 2013, with Mobile Poker playing an important part in its growth. In the US 45% of the adult population owns a smartphone and that number grows on a daily basis, and is forecast to grow extremely quickly with the introduction of budget smartphones, the first of which are hitting the market now. It's not just smartphones of course and tablets sales will continue to grow. Whilst growth in mobile sales take off, to a certain extent there are still a few issues that have not so much stopped the rise of mobile poker, but that have certainly impeded it.

The Problems with Mobile Poker

One issue that has restricted mobile poker in the US is that it's client based, however this to some degree has been resolved with the introduction of non downloaded clients meaning that you may play on a browser. The game offering is not as good as the fully downloadable client and mobile players are restricted to a few tourneys and limited cash games on offer. Another aspect is that poker is a very visual game and mobile screens are small, it can be difficult to see the cards and the action buttons on the fun money, or social games that are currently around are sometimes tricky to see. The problem has been partially solved with larger screens on mobile devices but it's not like playing at home on your laptop. As there is no stand out leading operating system at the moment, with users having the choice of many, iOS, Andriod to name the most popular creating and designing a poker app for all systems is both time consuming and expensive and it maybe for this reason that many companies have so far backed away from it.

Specific Mobile Poker Sites

There are a few sites popping up now that have been specifically designed with mobile poker in mind. These for starters have much bigger cards on view and offer a larger user interface making it so much easier to actually see what you are doing. The function buttons are also much larger than what you would normally see. Both Switch Poker and Terminal Poker have been launched with poker on the go in mind. The game offering is also much better with cash games and tournaments on offer with Texas Holdem and Omaha available. The mobile cashiers are safe and secure and you can even requests cash outs while out and about. It' early in the day for these type of sites and only time will tell how big mobile poker will grow with much depending on how much online poker companies are willing to invest in it.