Turns out that once I built the Android package in Intel XDK and installed the game on a device the ads worked.
Still messing around with Android versions since 5.x on a phone and v? on a Kindle Fire HD both work well but 4.3 on a Galaxy S3 isnt behaving.
I also tried with iOS using the Intel XDK emulator, the Intel XDK "App Preview" on an iPhone 6 Plus and iPad, using both the server and WiFi options, and no ads are showing. Considering using iAd instead of AdMob.
Tempted to resort to using AdSense then doing something with a web browser control to just wrap the game since it works in browser.
Long story short Android is working on latest OS but iOS not so much.