Mac Poker - Macintosh Online Poker Sites

History of Mac Poker

When online poker first developed in the late 1990s, there was no way to play poker on a mac. Early sites like Planet Poker, Paradise Poker and others were Windows-only. In fact, the Apple company as a whole was on the verge of failure during the early days of online poker. However, as the poker boom surged starting in 2003, the Mac resurgence came with it. Releases of award-winning computers such as the iMac, MacBook, MacBookPro and many others coincided with the development of the ground-breaking OS X operating system. Due to incredible development in Mac hardware and software along with general failures at Microsoft and PC vendors, many users migrated over to Mac computers. Naturally, many new mac owners wanted to know how to play poker on a mac. Early on, the answer was that poker on a mac was "mission impossible." Today, that is far from the case.

Ways to Play Poker on a Mac

There are three main ways to play poker on a mac. First, you can use a downloadable native client. Second, you can play on a web-based Mac-friendly version of a poker site's software. Third, you can install Windows on your computer using Bootcamp, Parallels, VMWare Fusion some similar software. We will discuss all three below.

Native OS X Mac Poker clients

The best software for mac poker players exists at Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt released their mac client in January 2006 which makes it over three years old. This means that tons of people have used the Full Tilt mac client and that every imaginable bug has been worked out. When using the Full Tilt mac version, you're not only getting as good of an experience as Windows users, you're getting a BETTER experience due to the capabilities of OS X. Not only that, Full Tilt Poker is one of the remaining sites that still accepts business from players located in the United States which makes it one of the biggest and most active sites online. You can't beat playing on Full Tilt Poker with your mac, especially considering the $600 (100% match) bonus you can receive by clicking here and downloading the software.

The biggest online poker site in the world is located at PokerStars. They have three times more traffic than any other poker site which is, to say the least, total domination. They also have a fully downloadable mac poker client although it was released years after the Full Tilt Poker mac client. Nonetheless, PokerStars has a world-class software development shop and they ran the Mac client in beta for around a year before releasing it as a production-quality stable client. The benefit to playing on PokerStars is that you can get any game at any time and you'll probably even have a bunch of tables to choose from. The downside to playing at PokerStars is that everyone knows about it and it can be harder to find weaker players because every poker shark in the world has a PokerStars account and a lot of them play on the site. That being said, the best poker players in the world compete on PokerStars and if you want to improve your game there's no better place to do so.

Web-based Mac-friendly Poker Clients

A number of sites offer web-based mac poker clients. For instance, Party Poker offers a Java poker client and, because Java is platform-independent, you can use it on your Mac (they refer to it as "Instant Play"). If you have a relatively recent Mac then you already have Java installed the first time you boot up your computer. There are a few limits to Instant Play, but the main one is that you can only play four tables at a time. The other downside is that the software performs just a slight bit slower than the native Windows client. However, the overall gaming experience on Party Poker's Instant Play client is probably, say, 80% as good as Full Tilt's native client. That is to say, it isn't quite as good, but it's still a great gaming experience. So why would you play on Party Poker on your mac instead of Full Tilt's native mac poker software? The answer is simple: soft games. Because Party Poker blocks the mass of experienced players in the United States from using their software, you find a lot of new European players on Party Poker and it's much easier to win money on a regular basis. So if soft games are important to you, it might be worth it to play on Party Poker's mac-friendly client instead of skipping out on the easy games altogether. You can read all about Party in our Party Poker Review. Also, don't miss our exclusive party poker bonus codes when you're signing up for an account!

Another option for web-based clients is Bodog's recently released "Flash" poker client. For years, the soft sportsbettor-filled tables at Bodog were closed off from the mac poker-playing community. Except for those who decide to install Windows on their Apple hardware, there was no way to get into a game on Bodog. Thankfully, that is no longer true. In early 2009 Bodog released a quick-loading web-based (and mac-friendly) poker client that seems to work extremely well. There is a downside to the new client though: you can only play one table of Texas holdem cash games. You cannot play tournaments, multiple tables, sit and goes or anything other than one table of holdem ring games. For obvious reasons, this is a significant drawback to Bodog but, once again, you shouldn't give up playing in an easy game. Because Bodog cash games are notoriously easy to win in, you can play one table on Bodog on your mac while also playing on a table or two on a site like Full Tilt Poker or Party Poker. Just that one table alone could easily help you pay for your mac in a single pot!

Installing Windows

Ugh, windows. Us mac users despise running Windows and for good reason. XP is old and lacks many of the features of OS X. And Vista is just flat out terrible and slow. But what if we REALLY want to play poker, we own a mac and the poker room refuses to release a mac client for us? Well, sadly, sometimes we have to put a copy of Windows on our Macs. I know, it hurts just to think about it. Alright, so what are your options for playing poker on your Mac hardware but with Windows as your operating system?

First, you can use Apple's wonderful Bootcamp program to install a native version of Windows on your computer. Bootcamp works like everything else on your Mac - which is to say, it works great. Bootcamp makes a partition in your hard drive, then you just put in your Windows CD and it takes it from there. Once you load up in Windows for the first time, you just need to insert the OS X disc that came with your Mac and Bootcamp will install all of the drivers for your Mac! No need to hunt around the internet for that elusive sound card driver or whatever. It's all there automatically and it all works great. The one caveat is that you must use the OS X CD that came with your computer. An iMac disc will not work if you're installing Bootcamp on a MacBook Pro - after all, the drivers are different. Once you have Windows installed via Bootcamp, just shutdown your computer and whenever you start it up, hold down the alt/option key and you'll have the choice whether you want to start up in Windows or OS X. For obvious reasons, you should choose OS X most of the time. But if you want to play some poker on your Mac on Windows-only clients, then choose Windows and you'll be good to go!

The second option is to install a Windows emulation program like Parallels or VMWare Fusion. These programs run Windows right inside OS X somewhat like any other application would. The benefit to using an emulator is that you can start it up fast right inside of OS X and you can switch back and forth easily. If you want to use iChat or other Mac programs while playing online poker on a Windows-only site, then you can do that with an emulator. The downside is that, because emulators run on top of OS X, they consume many more resources and they run slower than a native version of Windows. If you think about it, you're essentially running both OS X and Windows at the same time. So you would expect it to be slower. If you have a recent Mac and you have lots of RAM, you should be fine. But if you have an older Mac with only, say, 1 GB of RAM, then I would definitely not recommend trying to run Windows via emulator.

TightPoker's Conclusion

Aside from the obvious conclusion that Mac's are awesome, we believe the best place to play poker on a mac is at Full Tilt Poker. You just can't beat the native client, tons of action, great tournaments, friendly interface and incredible line up of pros to play against. But if you're looking for some variety in your mac poker playing world, try out Party Poker or Bodog Poker -- you can't go wrong with either one. Best of luck on the tables and here's to hoping that Apple computers keep getting better and better!