iPhone users have been through a lot. They have shelled out lots of money for a brand new phone that is really pretty and has some trendy (read: poinless) apps, but is absolutely useless if you want to make a phone call. iPhones aren’t really phones so much as small, rectangular app boxes, anyway. iPhone users also have to deal with the fact that they get poor reception and the phone will eventually break and will be virtually impossible to repair. In fact, Apple is swapping out the screws in the iPhones when you send them back so you are unable to open them! That means, of course, that Apple still considers it their property, rather than your own.

But now there is a tiny ray of light for those who wasted their money on a trendy-yet-mosly-worthless iPhone: The first two real-money poker apps have been released. This is big news, because prior to this event, there were no gambling apps for the iPhone where you can play for real money. This week, the first two were released.

The first was released earlier this week by bwin, the popular sports betting and online poker company. That app is currently only available to iPhone customers in Austria and the United Kingdom. There are no announced plans to release the apps in any other jurisdictions, though most believe they will work out a deal to release them in other European markets soon.

The bwin poker app is a Texas hold’em game that is free to download. It can be found in the Apple Store under the name “bwin.com Poker.” This app allows you to play real-money online poker against live opponents. To make things easier for new players, the game has a hint feature that displays the best possible hand out of what cards you have.

The other new poker app was released on Thursday by Microgaming and it is not affiliated with a specific casino. Instead, the software provider directly provides a poker game like you can find at many of their affiliated casinos.

Well, iPhone applications are causing a fuss again. This time isn’t not an app for shaking a baby or snorting cocaine, though. This time it’s about gambling.

Australian parliamentarian Nick Xenophon is outraged about poker iPhone apps that allow children to play the popular card game, betting fake money. He says the apps should be banned because they teach children to gamble at an early age and could lead to gambling addiction.

Citing concerns that it would get children used to the idea of playing poker for money, he said that “kids can become poker machine experts years before they are legally allowed to set eyes on a real machine.” In Australia, you must be at least 18 years of age to place a bet in any of their casinos.

The iPhone apps addressed by Xenophon are applications that have been endorsed by some of the big-name online casino companies. Though the games are free and you only gamble with play money, Xenophon worries that it could develop a pattern and teach kids that playing poker is a good way to make money. He said that the iPhone apps are “a training application for kids to lose real money when they turn eighteen.” Most of the apps do not have age restrictions.

Though he would like to ban them outright, Xenophon acknowledges that removing access to them in the country may not be possible. As a more realistic goal, he intends to push for legislation that would make it illegal to provide the iPhone gambling apps to children.