Android Market used to be a paradise when it comes to gambling apps, as Google had no qualms about accepting all kinds of real money software, whether it was related to poker, casino games, sports betting or bingo. Unfortunately, as the United States government cracked down on online gambling with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and other countries followed suit, the company decided to block all gambling and adult material oriented apps, which in the end happened in January 2012. Fortunately, unlike Apple’s iOS, Android is an open platform – so the removal of those apps from the Android Market didn’t result in an immediate apocalypse in the world of Android based mobile poker.
Quite the contrary, all the poker rooms that were affected by Google’s decision quickly began offering the app files directly from their websites. Consequently, all you have to do in order to download a mobile poker app for Android is to visit the mobile poker site you like and scan a QR code or follow the appropriate link from your smartphone or tablet. The only real inconvenience is the fact that you’ll have to authorize non-Google Play apps on your Android device in order to download and install any real money gambling apps, but the process is very easy and you won’t have to do it more than once.
Google might continue its war on adult materials with the June 2013 removal of all gambling and porn related apps from Google Glass, but as usual since the demand was there, someone was bound to provide the Android users with a convenient solution. In this particular case, the cavalry came in the form of unofficial app markets such as Getjar, which follow the same policy that Google Play employed prior to 2012 and list most of the gambling apps available in the industry these days. Furthermore, the lack of real money poker clients on the Android Market doesn’t mean that other poker-related apps are impossible to get – in fact, all the popular play money poker clients, training apps and calculators are still listed there. What’s more, plenty of high-profile poker sites have already moved to take advantage of this fact – for example, PokerStars released a free play social poker app which doesn’t allow its users to place any real money bets and focuses on building an extensive community instead. Nevertheless, it would be rather foolish to think that such products don’t increase the awareness of the game while simultaneously attracting new customers to the company’s more serious offerings.
All things considered, the open source nature of the Android platform makes it a perfect choice for poker enthusiasts, as censoring or banning game related content simply does not seem to be feasible at this point in time – even for government entities or companies as big as Google. Consequently, whereas Apple users are often forced to resort to inferior browser-based software, Android device owners have no reason to worry about the shortage of top notch mobile poker apps in the foreseeable future.
Google might continue its war on adult materials with the June 2013 removal of all gambling and porn related apps from Google Glass, but as usual since the demand was there, someone was bound to provide the Android users with a convenient solution. In this particular case, the cavalry came in the form of unofficial app markets such as Getjar, which follow the same policy that Google Play employed prior to 2012 and list most of the gambling apps available in the industry these days. Furthermore, the lack of real money poker clients on the Android Market doesn’t mean that other poker-related apps are impossible to get – in fact, all the popular play money poker clients, training apps and calculators are still listed there. What’s more, plenty of high-profile poker sites have already moved to take advantage of this fact – for example, PokerStars released a free play social poker app which doesn’t allow its users to place any real money bets and focuses on building an extensive community instead. Nevertheless, it would be rather foolish to think that such products don’t increase the awareness of the game while simultaneously attracting new customers to the company’s more serious offerings.
All things considered, the open source nature of the Android platform makes it a perfect choice for poker enthusiasts, as censoring or banning game related content simply does not seem to be feasible at this point in time – even for government entities or companies as big as Google. Consequently, whereas Apple users are often forced to resort to inferior browser-based software, Android device owners have no reason to worry about the shortage of top notch mobile poker apps in the foreseeable future.
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