A sea-change in operator attitudes towards mobile gambling services,
improvements to handset user interfaces and the gradual introduction of
legislation permitting remote gambling in selected markets are among the key
factors which are expected to push total annual wagers via mobile phones to more
than $27.5bn by 2013, according to a new report from Juniper Research.
According to report author Dr Windsor Holden, "Operators are
demonstrably much more open to the idea of mobile gambling than they were even
12-18 months ago, both in terms of offering gambling services on-portal and
accepting advertising from gambling companies."
However, the Juniper report noted that, while EU intervention
was having some impact on the liberalization of Europe's gambling markets,
little progress had been made in the potentially lucrative US market, where
remote gambling services are still prohibited. It argued that commercial
deployments in the US were now unlikely until 2010 at the earliest.
Juniper Research also found that mobile sports betting will
comprise the majority of annual wagers over the next five years, although mobile
lottery services - which are being increasingly deployed in key Latin American
and Asian markets - will attain the highest adoption level, with nearly 400m
users worldwide by the end of the forecast period.
Other findings from the report include:
gross win from mobile gambling services will rise from just under $192m in 2008
to $3.4bn by 2013.
In terms of total wager, Western Europe will remain the largest
regional mobile gambling market throughout the forecast period, although the
relative contribution of the UK will decline significantly with the deployment
of more services in continental Europe
Gambling
service providers should deploy text-based gambling services in developing
markets to encourage mass adoption
Juniper Research assesses the current and future status of
the mobile gambling market based on interviews, case studies and analysis from
representatives of some of the leading organisations in the growing mobile
gambling industry.
White papers and further details of the study 'Mobile
Gambling: Casinos, Lotteries and Betting 2008-2013 (Fifth Edition)' can be
freely downloaded from http://www.juniperresearch.com