News

Tuesday, 02 November 2010 11:31

The US government may be fighting a losing battle if it wants to keep online gambling out of reach of its citizens as mobile gambling is on the rise.

It looks like the government in the US is in for an uphill struggle in its attempts to stop US players from accessing online gambling portals. Mobile gambling is the new in vogue concept and with the rapid development of mobile devices capable of running gambling oriented applications, it is getting harder to regulate and control the gambling habits of the nation.

According to a study conducted by analysts at Juniper Research, state lotteries will be running mobile apps by the start of 2011 and the big international online gambling companies are hot on their heels with new mobile casino apps in the pipeline that could send online gambling revenue in the US to the $50 billion mark.

According to a leading analyst at Juniper Research working on their mobile gambling study, Windsor Holden, while gambling on mobile devices is already happening and growing in countries like the UK, China and Japan, it is in the United States where the fastest growth is predicted to happen over the next few years. With major companies involved with online gambling such as Betfair, Ladbrokes and Paddy Power already developing suitable apps to run on popular mobile devices such as those produced by Apple, the stage is set to see in the next phase in the online gambling phenomenon explode onto our mobile screens.

Holden said that the service providers who will become the most successful will be those that do not try to merely replicate the web based experience as seen form computer desktops and laptops, but those that offer the kind of application that plays on the strengths of mobile devices. That is because it has become apparent that the way consumers gamble on computers is different from the way they do so on mobile devices. This is down to their often being simultaneously engaged in a separate activity like watching television or being with friends in a bar or other social setting. 

An interesting side to the study is how state lotteries have become involved with mobile devices. Since these lotteries are already up and running legally while also being exempt from the regulations attached to the UIGEA, it is simply a natural progression for gambling on state lotteries to be migrated to the mobile device. Holden also claims that some of the larger lottery providers are already negotiating with mobile lottery software platform providers and that it is almost certain they will become a reality in some states sooner rather than later.