PokerStars has unveiled its latest addition to real money mobile applications available for Italian customers: Poker Mobile for Android. Today’s announcement follows the official release in January of its mobile application for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.
Currently only available to Italian customers in the segregated PokerStars.it poker room, the application provides a full real money poker experience, with support for multi-tabling, table chat and hand histories, tournament and cash games, and support for the most popular poker variants.
Unlike Apple, which permits certain real money gambling games in the Apple Store and lists the PokerStars iOS client, the official Google Marketplace does not list such applications, and players are instructed to download the application directly from PokerStarsMobile.it. The app supports all phone and tablet devices with Android 2.2 or later, although the application is only currently optimized for phone resolutions.
The restriction to only the Italian market is likely temporary: its license under the official Italian gaming commission the AAMS would have made the acceptance in to the Apple App Store a smoother process and offered a good test-bed to trial the apps. It is safe to assume similar offerings in other regulated markets – including France, Denmark, Belgium and the UK – are not far away.
There has been a flurry of activity recently around the mobile space, with more and more poker networks adding native mobile applications for real money cash games. 888 recently started public Beta testing its Android application, mobile-centric Switch Poker now has dedicated applications for Android and Apple devices, and bwin, on the Ongame Network, has dedicated applications for mobile.
Full Tilt was an early innovator, with mobile applications for its Rush Poker, a unique, fast-paced poker variant that was particularly suited to mobile gaming. Upstart Terminal Poker took a similar approach, with a poker room exclusively for mobile “Rush”-style play, and PokerStars expects to debut Zoom Poker, its own take on the format, within the next month.
