Mobile P2P Poker

[IA Lou]

Hi Guys

One of our clients, who is one of the biggest UK mobile casinos, is very close to launching a P2P poker app.

I'm curious if anyone knows what else is out there in terms of P2P poker for the mobile phone?

I've got the Zynga poker app for my iPhone but of course you can't play for real money.

Have any of the major rooms launched mobile P2P poker yet? If the numbers of people playing on the iphone app are any indication, it must be a huge potential market.

[MJ]

Cake has a client I guess, I don't see mobile poker doing very well unless it's heads up sngs and heads up cash tables personally - too much lag with people timing out etc.

Owe you a reply to mail Lou - haven't forgot, I'm on vaca.

[Mr-AJ]

I know that Ongame, Bwin have been working extensively in this area and there have already been some information about a Pokerroom and Bwin mobile client out there. However, never heard of it again and I had to search for hours last time. Seems that it has not been successful at all. It will be a very hot topic in the near future for sure though.

[pomp]

Ongame have by far the best program

[pokerextras]

I regularly play on bwins mobile client, and have been using ongames mobile downloads for about 3 years now. Originally on pokerroom, then moving to bwin when pokerroom closed. I also used to play on a download called acesroyal which closed about a year ago when the parent company disolved.

Two pieces of advice that i can offer.

1. Make sure that the mobile players play at the same tables as the pc players, or the mobile players will find traffic too low at times and become disenchanted.

2. The main thing that ongame's client lacks is access to tournaments. It's cash games only. If the new client were to facilitate entry into tournaments, it'd probably dominate the market.

Please keep us informed of developements, and let me know if you'd like any beta testing done.

[IA Lou]

Awesome feedback, Pokerextras and all. Thanks.

1. Make sure that the mobile players play at the same tables as the pc players, or the mobile players will find traffic too low at times and become disenchanted.

This was one of my main concerns. Since they are not an established pokerroom, it could be difficult for them to build a consistent player base, since it's sort of a chicken-or-the-egg situation. However, this was also the situation when the launched bingo, but with a good mobile ppc campaign, and later tv ads, they were able to overcome the inertia.

One potential perk of this situation: I get the sense that with mobile games, there is more crossover, as players experiment with the different games out of pure boredom/interest. Thus it could potentially be a very fishy water...

Please keep us informed of developements, and let me know if you'd like any beta testing done.

Will do. If you are going to be at Prague, we should have a beta version out then for testing I believe... PM me and we can meet up.

In the mean time, I'm going to have a look at Bwin's software...

[Mr-AJ]

Just a suggestion that might solve problem number 1:
Why not go to any of the networks that didn't develop anything in this area (I guess there are a few big ones like ipoker) and sell it to them. They could offer that to their skins and you could earn some commission. Could be easier than running it on your own (less profitable though) without any existing players. I think it's almost impossible to get critical mass without an existing liquidity.
Just my 2 cents

[pokerextras]

Just a suggestion that might solve problem number 1:
Why not go to any of the networks that didn't develop anything in this area (I guess there are a few big ones like ipoker) and sell it to them. They could offer that to their skins and you could earn some commission. Could be easier than running it on your own (less profitable though) without any existing players. I think it's almost impossible to get critical mass without an existing liquidity.
Just my 2 cents

That's actually a great idea. I honestly don't think that a mobile only client will have the traffic to keep people interested. Try licensing it to stars or tilt. Like i said, i used to play on a mobile only download called aces royal. They actually used to advertise on British television during the late night poker shows, but you'd regularly find yourself playing against the same twenty players. It got real boring.

[IA Lou]

Very good idea, though this firm seems to pretty against selling out. I know they received a lot of lucrative offers for their bingo software from the biggest bingo rooms and ended up saying no.

One option, short of whole sale selling, is creating a WL. I think that's what they ultimately ended up doing in bingo.

I definitely agree that poker is not like any other gambling operation, to the extent that you need players to attract players, which puts a start up operation in a tricky bind.

[Robingbg]

Maby its time for me to start using my domain mobilepoker.info soon.