Editorial

Monday, 10 August 2009 06:04

The seemingly never ending rise of the online gaming industry continues to push the boundaries in its expansion into ever more homes and personal spaces with innovative new means as they become available and viable.

One such vehicle for that expansion is the mobile phone. As mobile technology continues to advance almost daily and cell phones and the networks that drive them become capable of ever greater feats of technological wizardry, the online gaming industry has not failed to see the potential for the advanced graphics and operating speeds of the new breed of such phones.

As the computer game industry has pushed the envelope to produce high graphical and fast games for mobile phones, so the interactive gambling industry has forged ahead with ever more powerful means for those mobile phone owners to gamble over the phone. Mobile gaming is being ever more extensively offered by a growing number of Internet casino and interactive poker operators who are keen to cash in on this, so far largely untapped resource.

Since the birth of online gambling in the middle of the 1990s, online casino technology has advanced at an incredible rate. It has kept pace with advancements in home computer technology and the increase in the speeds at which those computers are capable of running software, displaying high resolution graphics and rendering digital audio. As home computers became ever cheaper for ordinary families to buy, so the potential number of customers for the ever growing number of popular online casinos and interactive poker rooms has grown. At the present time online casinos number in the several thousands, operating from various places around the globe with many millions of customers all playing their selection of casino games from the comfort of their own homes.

While this outlet for online casinos is far from being at saturation point, the next big expansion is seen by the industry as that of mobile phone users. To that end, online gaming software companies are busy creating ever more powerful casino games that can be played on the newer mobile phones that are fast becoming mini-computers in their own right. This means that placing a bet, going to play at an online casino, playing a few hands of poker or indulging in spread betting on either the sporting or the global financial markets, all of these things are possible via a mobile phone.

As long as a mobile phone is Internet enabled and no more than two or three years old, the chances are that it will be compatible with the latest breed of mobile casino software. Those with larger, brighter screens will naturally work better, but the functionality exists to bring gambling to those on the move direct to the mobile phone user via their network. This means that many of the favourite online casino games are available, such as blackjack, baccarat, craps, Caribbean poker, war, European and American roulette, sic bo, slots, keno and video poker.

The current drawbacks for mobile gambling are with the speed of connection and bandwidth that mobile phones are able to use. This restricts the speed of play and renders some games that rely on a heavy graphical overhead less playable. However, continued advancement in handset technology and continued research into ever improving the network speeds are gradually overcoming any of these current restrictions.  

In Britain, the mobile gaming provider Probability Games has recently released its definitive list of the top ten mobile phones used for mobile gaming in the UK. This is based on the total number of registrations with their mobile casinos over a period of three months. The list is as follows:

1. Nokia N95
2. Samsung SGH F480
3. Sony Ericsson K800i
4. Samsung SGH J700
5. Nokia 6500s-1
6. Sony Ericsson W5800i
7. Samsung SGH G600
8. Samsung SGH E250
9. Sony Ericsson W910i
10. Nokia 6300

These handsets have become as popular as mobile gambling devices thanks to their relatively large, high resolution display screens along with the many PDA-like capabilities built into their operating systems. Their increased internal memory along with the ability to upgrade using relatively cheap flash memory cards also improves their ability to play the growing number of casino games that are available for mobile phones. Meanwhile, the newer mobile phones coming onto the market continue to make improvements and provide ever better software processing capabilities, with ever better displays and faster internet connection speeds.

Despite the rapid advancements made with mobile phone technology, it may still take some time for the mobile gaming side of the industry to catch up with the explosive rise in online gambling played on home computers. However, the writing is already on the wall for this still greatly untapped outlet for an industry that continues to thrive despite a world economic recession.