Mac poker players can ring in the holiday season a little earlier this year. On Wednesday, Carbon Poker will unveil a fully downloadable Mac client. In addition to Carbon Poker, the Mac software will debut across the USA-friendly Merge Gaming Network.
The Mac client has been being beta tested to this point and will now be available for public consumption tomorrow night. Interested players can download the Mac version from Carbon Poker’s website or from other skins of the Merge Gaming Network. There are only a handful of sites that offer fully functional Mac clients, including Full Tilt and PokerStars. Other sites like PartyPoker and Bodog offer web-based clients that have major limitations. However, they still allow Mac users to play online poker.
Atil Singh, Head of Acquisition at Carbon Poker, told Poker News Daily on the eve of the Mac client’s launch, “Having the ability to offer potential customers a Mac version of our software is quite significant. Numerous studies have shown that Apple’s market share in the U.S. has grown to over 10% in 2010 and will continue to grow rapidly moving forward. Our affiliates can now target an unsaturated market of potential Carbon Poker players. There has never been a better time to be Mac-friendly.”
Singh added that Mac players will be impressed with the features of the new Carbon Poker client that will be rolled out on Wednesday: “Beta testing on the new client has gone very well and some of the new features have been especially popular. Tournament lobbies now open in a separate window, full screen mode has been optimized for smoother play, and improvements have been made to the software’s performance on smaller computers and netbooks.”
To this point, Mac users have had to hunt down a program like Parallels or Boot Camp in order to load Windows-based software on their computers. Now, Mac players can download the Merge Gaming software right onto their machines, most likely leading to an increase in player counts. The rollout of the Mac software is scheduled for 7:00pm ET on Wednesday.
Merge Gaming officials have also been jumping for joy this week after Monday’s update to PokerScout.com, which tracks online poker room traffic. The Merge Gaming Network leapfrogged both Everest Poker and the Cake Poker Network to move to #22 worldwide in terms of cash game traffic. According to PokerScout.com, the Merge Gaming Network boasts a seven-day running average of 820 real money ring game players, ahead of Everest Poker and the Cake Poker Network’s 810.
Besides Carbon Poker, other Merge Gaming Network rooms include Aced, Big Bet Poker, Overbet, PDC Poker, PokerHost, and RPM Poker. The Merge Gaming Network is based in Australia and hosts its game servers on the Kahnawake reservation in Canada.
In December, Carbon Poker is holding a $50,000 Grand Prix, which awards cash prizes to players who rack up VIP Points on its felts. The top 500 spots will pay out and a minimum prize of $10 is up for grabs. A total of $50,000 in cash will be dished out during the December promotion, with a top prize of $3,000.
Carbon Poker and the Merge Gaming Network happily accept players from the United States.
