Mobile gambling on winning streak

Annual mobile gambling revenues are expected to top $27.5bn by 2013, according to figures released Wednesday.

Industry analyst Juniper Research said a sea change in operator attitudes towards gambling services is combining with improvements to user interfaces and the gradual introduction of legislation permitting mobile gambling, to drive this growth.

Juniper analyst Windsor Holden said, “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 analyst notes that while EU intervention is having some impact on the liberalisation of Europe’s gambling markets, little progress had been made in the potentially lucrative US market, where remote gambling services are still prohibited.

Commercial mobile gambling deployments in the US are now unlikely to take place until 2010 at the earliest, Juniper said.

Sports betting is forecast to comprise the majority of annual wagers over the next five years, although mobile lottery services, which are becoming increasingly popular in key Latin American and Asian markets, will attain the highest adoption level, with nearly 400 million users worldwide by the end of 2013.