Mobile Poker Cheating Growing!

Source: blackjackchamp.com

While both Apple founder Steve Jobs and Google CEO have declared moratoriums on mobile gambling applications within the Apple App Store and the Android Market (respectively), software developers continue to create mobile poker apps.

Now, two more internet gambling firms have publicized new mobile poker applications which enable players to wager real money in as many days.

On January 19th, Austria-based Bwin, which may be merging with Party Gaming, launched what they are hailing as the first ever native iPhone gambling app that enables poker players to wager real money. While this poker app can currently only be bought from the Apple App Store by iPhone users in the United Kingdom or Austria, Bwin plans to release the poker application throughout the rest of Europe in the foreseeable future.

On January 20th, Microgaming software declared that their own real money Android poker app would be available by the end of this financial quarter. The application will provide access to all online poker rooms available within the Microgaming network. Lydia Melton, Microgaming’s head of poker, stated “For years now, industry experts have speculated on the mobile market’s possibilities for gaming…. The technology is ready, the software is ready, and we believe the players are ready as well. The future is here. We are extremely excited about this release.”

Even though mobile gambling has proven to be a growth industry for the past few years, progress porting real money wagering, especially for poker, to smart phones has been limited by legal and moral objections in some regions and confusion about the same in others. Additionally, mobile poker has more complicated technological requirements since more data is transferred and securing the applications to prevent cheating requires greater sophistication. Compounding the issues, the Apple App Store has long resisted gambling apps and recently Google declared real gambling is not allowed in the Android Market.

Despite all these obstacles, additional internet poker rooms and poker networks can be expected to join the mobile gambling market – the market hold too much potential for profit to be ignored.