Already a partial success in the cell phone market, poker reaches more and more phones by the day. With various games like Texas Hold Them and 7 Card Stud, mobile poker has grabbed a decent sized share of the wireless entertainment market. These games allow players to either play against a program (Video Poker) or even play with their friends at tables or tournaments from the convenience of a cell phone!
This has prompted many to question whether cell phone poker will ever truly take off and jump to the forefront of mobile phone entertainment. But as a rebuttal to anyone who doubts that mobile phone poker will explode and become one of the world's favorite pastimes, the answer is yes, poker on cell phones will be the wave of the future.
Wireless poker doesn't have to rely heavily upon graphics in order to succeed, as poker is becoming a more and more mainstream and accepted past-time. With the option to play poker on your cell phone, a person will never be far from being able to play a game of mobile poker.
In taking a cue from the rising trend that is Internet poker; many popular online gambling sites are starting to take their online poker rooms to mobile phones. Major online poker rooms have experienced a large amount of success due to the poker software that they've made available for certain mobile phone such as the Sony Ericcson 700i and the Nokia 6660.
While players still have the option to just play a friendly little game against some friends for play money, they also have the option to link up to Internet rooms and battle it out with real money at stake. With the success of the big poker rooms and casino operators being crystallized others are already starting to follow in their footsteps and are making provisions to join the mobile market as well.
Mobile phone poker means that people will no longer have to be in front of their desktop computer or laptop when they want to play. A poker player could be sitting in their car and waiting for fast food, while at the same time going all-in with a full house. Someone could be hanging out at the swimming pool while also being faced with the decision of whether to see the flop with their suited 9, 10 pair. Really, the scenarios are endless.
According to the research service PokerPulse, more than 1.88 million poker players made real money wagers online in February, 2005 with nearly US$200 million being wagered every day. For the year 2005, commissions or rakes from online poker will total US$1 billion.
In 2003, overall Internet gaming wagers totalled nearly US$5.7 billion and according to industry analysts Christiansen Capital Advisors, and wagers are expected to grow to more than US$18 billion by the year 2010.
