I remember a couple years ago when all the buzz in online poker was mobile gaming. Sites like Pokerroom.com spent millions of dollars to be on the leading edge of this technology. Back in those days at CAC events, this is what all the big rooms were talking about. I bet I heard or read about mobile gaming a hundred times in 2006.

The big hype on mobile gaming was back in 2005-2006. We are now a few weeks away from 2008, and to be honest I don’t think mobile gaming ever lived up to all this hype. I am not trying to say “I told you so”, but even back in those days I was reluctant about mobile gaming. I know my friends over at PartyGaming have tons of money wrapped up in the concept, but I still just don’t ever see it becoming huge.

If anything, it can maybe just bring in some incremental users or make the companies like Party look good by being “leading edge”. From what I see, there really isn’t a great demand in the market from real money players for mobile gaming.

Here are a five reasons I think the mobile gaming concept has, and will continue to be a failure in the online poker market:

1. Speed and Disconnects - Cell phone speeds are unreliable and slow. In the U.S. it is hard to have a 30 minute conversation without dropping the call at least once. Disconnects are always a pain in when playing online from a computer with broadband or DSL speed. Imagine how bad it would be on a cell phone. I see this being a major objection for real money players.

2. Screen Size - How big can you make a cell phone screen? Not big enough that any regular online player will want to look at it. The opportunity to misclick or misread is exponentially higher than playing on a computer. Imagine playing on a 2″ screen with a stylus…..yuck. Once again, many real money players are not going to want to deal with this. Likewise I think your hands and thumbs would be sore holding and typing on a cell phone for hours.

3. Cost & Power - The cost of data transfer for cell phones is still rather expensive. There are hundreds of stories right now about new iphone users racking up thousands in cell phone bills. Also an application like this on your phone will burn through your battery life fairly quick. Especially when you’re thinking in terms of “poker time”.

4. Phone Calls - One key component here that is seldom mentioned. We’re talking about cell phones, we like to TALK on them. I know there have been countless times I have answered my cell phone when playing online poker. Furthermore, what happens when your in a big hand and the phone rings possibly overriding your browser?

5. Multi-Tabling - Over the past 2 years “multi-tabling” has become very popular. This will never be feasible on a cell phone.

And finally just why? This is the question I have been asking since 2005. Anyone who wants to play online poker for any amount of time surely can find a wifi spot, or somewhere to play on their laptop. Whether it’s an airport or at school, Wifi is prevalent in so many more places than it was back in the days this was introduced.

I’m sure there are some degenerates somewhere that love playing mid to high stakes from their treo’s with a sylus, but I have never met anyone who plays for real money on a cell phone. Nor have I ever met anyone that thinks it would kick ass to play on a 2″ screen while depending on cell towers.

With the evolution of new phones like the iphone, I do think that surfing the web from phones will continue to gain in popularity. For those of us on the business side of online poker however, I wouldn’t look for mobile gaming to become a booming niche any time soon.

Maybe I am completely off base on this one. But I think the entire concept of mobile gaming was a flash in the pan. Back when internet browsing was introduced on cell phones, it sounded like a hot idea to everyone including affiliates and operators. In reality though, it just doesn’t make sense for 95% of the real money online players.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 5:02 pm and is filed under Affiliate Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.