Convenience Of Mobile Gambling
The days of having to shower, dress, drive and park at a casino were over when online casinos burst onto the internet in the late 1990s and early 2000. Technology continues to progress with more and more sophisticated mobile phone devices.
The move to online gambling made online casinos, poker, sportsbooks and spread betting available from home. Now there are mobile poker rooms, WAP casinos, mobile spread betting and the ability to place via a mobile or PDA while at a live sports event.
The worldwide explosion in gambling, both online and offline, is set to see a further surge as the number of people gambling via their mobile phones looks ready to increase dramatically over the next five years.
The popularity of internet sports betting has grown prolifically over the past five years and the recent boom in online casino gaming has added further fervour to the global gambling phenomenon.
As consumers grow accustomed to being able to gamble any time, any place, any where, the mobile casino is soon to be common place among those wishing to gamble.
Convenience of mobile gambling
Gambling has now gone fully mobile with technology that allows online casino players to play their favourite games from their cellular phones or PDAs, allowing access to those on-the-go anywhere, anytime.
With the increase in mobile phone / PDA related technology, industry experts expect mobile gaming revenue to increase by 900% in the next three years, as players take advantage of the convenience of mobile gambling.
Players who wish to gamble when mobile simply have to download the mobile software application to their mobile device. The player registers an account, with account information stored in the ‘backend’ for user protection should the user’s mobile device be lost or stolen. Funds can be deposited or withdrawn using an eWallet payment system, accessible from the mobile device, after which the user is ready to start playing mobile casino games.
Almost everyone has a mobile phone and there are more mobiles than PCs in the world, making the opportunity to play casino games like Blackjack or Roulette on the train or bus to work a reality.
Juniper Research expects bets placed over mobile phone applications to rise from just under $2bn currently to in excess of $23bn by 2011, according to a more recent forecast. Part of the predicated growth in mobile gambling is a large increase in mobile casinos.
The growth in 3G subscriptions as well as the introduction of increasingly sophisticated handsets with greater rich media capabilities will also make casino games a more attractive handheld offering.
