by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Mar 12, 2012 | Updated on Mar 12, 2012Making it to the World Series of Poker is a dream for most poker players around the world, but for many, the combined cost of traveling to Las Vegas and paying a tournament buy-in is just too much to bear. Now, EA has announced the release of a free WSOP game for mobile devices, giving players a way to experience a little bit of high-stakes poker action without any of the risk.The game, which is scheduled to be released early this summer, is part of an entire line of games being developed by EA for the iPhone and iPad. The game doesn’t contain any AI or computer opponents; instead, players can only play online against other users. Players can play through an entire poker career with full stat tracking, which includes playing in tournaments against other players from around the world.According to early reports at sites such as Touch Arcade, World Series of Poker looks and feels a lot like other mobile poker games. However, the graphics appear to be a strong point, and a clean interface makes it fairly simply to play even on the small screen. As an added bonus, the game allows players to compete in both Texas Hold’em and Omaha tournaments, an improvement over many other mobile poker rooms and Facebook poker games that only allow players to compete in hold’em.This is not the first time the World Series of Poker has been the subject of a video game. A series of World Series of Poker games was produced by Activision over the last decade, with the most recent example being World Series of Poker 2008: Battle for the Bracelets.The WSOP likely has a different motivation for using their brand on mobile devices this time around. The WSOP brand (owned by Caesars Entertainment) is likely to be a strong contender in American markets when individual states – or the entire nation – regulate online poker, and adding a mobile poker game under that name can only strengthen the brand’s association with playing poker on computers and other electronic devices.
