Top FREE Casino and Poker Apps for Android (Screenshots, Market Download)

Anyone who knows me knows I like to gamble from time to time. nothing major, just a few trips a year to a casino for some blackjack or poker. I also like to hold small poker games at my house. Naturally, when looking for games on Android to pass the time, I look for casino games easy to play, you can stop and start them whenever, and just maybe they would help improve my blackjack and hold ‘em skills.

There are a ton of poker and blackjack apps out there, so most of the apps here will fall under one of those two categories, but I also included some table games and slot apps.

Click on the Green Application Name to Download

Live Hold ‘Em Poker Pro

Price: Free

This is my favorite poker app of the lot. You can select from a number of several tables, with blinds anywhere from 1 and 2 to 20K and 40K. You can also play in two tournament style games: "Sit and Go" which appears to be a regular style Texas Hold ‘Em tournament; and "Shootou" which is a three round tournament, with a different buy-in for each round.

You can also add people to your friends lists, and join in on games they are playing. The app does require a login, and you can either create a new username and password, or you can link it to your Facebook account.

Live Hold 'Em Poker Pro

WSOP Hold ‘Em Legend

Price: $4.99

Visually, there is a lot going on with this app. Animations, an circular menu and a ton of graphics that need to be downloaded the first time you boot up the app. You can play a couple of different types of Hold ‘Em games, but they all seem to be against computers. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see a way to play other people without using OpenFeint.

Even using OpenFeint, it looks like you need to have other friends online to play the game, you cannot play random people. While the app does look nice.

Zynga Poker

Price: Free

Zynga is a company that  makes a bunch of games on a bunch of different platforms, and have brought you hits like Farmville and Mafia Wars, so its no surprise that you need a Facebook account to play Zynga Poker. I’m generally against stuff like this because I don’t want everything I do being associated with my Facebook account.

But if we look past that, this is actually a pretty nice app. You play against real people and your Facebook friends can gift chips to you . However, one feature I was looking for was a list of my Facebook friends that also had this game, which I could not find. I would really like to see that functionality added to this app so I could start tables exclusively for my friends. Of all the poker apps, I would say this one has the most potential.

Texas Poker

Price: Free

I became acquainted with this app for iOS and enjoyed it. You can register or play as a Guest, and you can add or search friends to see where they are playing, as well as select from a large number of tables to play on. You can also press "Play Now" to join a random table. As far as I can tell, all of the tables have real people, not bots.

Real BlackJack

Price: Free

Real BlackJack is my favorite BlackJack app for Android. Its simple, serving as a teacher for those who are just beginning. Its just you against the dealer, you can to surrender, split, double down, hit, and stand. There’s also an advice button that tells you what it thinks you should do, a basic strategy sheet, and some card counting methods. Its a full featured app for a relatively simple game.

The Real BlackJack game and strategy screens

Ultimate BlackJack 3D

Price: Free

Compared to Real BlackJack, I am not a big fan of this app. It forces landscape mode, and has pretty distracting voices and music on by default. You can go to the Settings to turn them off, but for the voices you have to uncheck each option individually. While the app does offer a lot of customization options in settings, I feel like it’s overkill for a Blackjack app.

As far as gameplay goes, things seem a little cramped and the interface is not as intuitive as Real BlackJack. To hit, you tap the deck, to stay you tap just about anywhere else. If you want to split or double down, you need to press the Menu key. Some more thought about the interface would have allowed these functions to be placed somewhere on the screen instead of in a secondary menu.

The graphics, while pretty neat in their technical ability, are really annoying as far as UX goes. If the phone is not stationary, the angle of everything moves. This makes for a very unenjoyable playing experience.

Live BlackJack

Price: Free

The interface for Live BlackJack is similar to Real BlackJack, and is pretty easy to use. Like Live Hold ‘Em, you have to log in to play. However, you cannot use the same login for both apps, which seemed a little strange to me. You can also opt to use Facebook to log in.

The app also has an option to play with friends, but that just displays a "Coming Soon" message. Right now, it looks like you can only play the dealer.

Astraware Casino (Tutorial & Game)

Price: $1.94

Astraware Casino is an 11-in-1 casino games app and includes Texas Hold Em, Blackjack, slots, craps, and more. The games are actually pretty cool: they are easy to use, there is a how-to for each game, and the variety can keep you busy for a while. Plus, if you are looking to learn any games, this app is worth the $2 as it shows you how to play.

The graphics can be a little strange sometimes you will see some pixelation and the screen goes blank when you are in the lobby. This does not seem to happen during gameplay.

Astraware Casino Lobby and Slots

Roulette Royale

Price: Free

This roundup would not be complete without a Roulette app, but I do not think this is the best one the Android Market has to offer. The graphics are nice and the gameplay is fine, but the app has a bunch of built in sounds and speech that you cannot turn off because there are no settings.

That being said, this may be the best free one out there. The other (free) Roulette apps I tried were either buggy or had some features I did not really appreciate, like requiring Facebook to use the app.