Mobile sports betting

The final strand of the gambling rope is that of sports betting, whereby the player bets on the outcome of a sporting event such as a football game or a horse race, although it can cover anything that a bookmaker is prepared to take a bet on, such as whether it will snow on Christmas Day in London and so on. This area of gambling has particular interest to those looking to exploit the mobile channel, since it may offer the opportunity not only to allow players to place a bet about the outcome of a particular event, but also to dynamically bet through their handset as to the outcome of particular events within the game itself, such as whether a certain player will score before half time. This is wholly dependent on the technology being available to allow it, but every indication points to the presence of significant numbers of ‘always on’ GPRS and 3G users by 2007/2008, particularly in the more developed markets to make this happen.

Mobile lottery

More than 90 per cent of the population of the UK and United States have at sometime played a lottery (in its traditional paper form, not lottery via mobile phone) at least once, with in the order of 80 per cent playing regularly. Coupling this huge market for mobile lottery with the immediacy and penetration of the mobile phone is a logical and lucrative proposition, both for existing lottery operators (not only mobile lotto) and alternative providers. Some analysts believe that mobile lottery services will explode across all regions of the world within the next five years and lottery via mobile phone will generate vast revenues.

Mobile casino style gambling

In appearance and user experience, this casino gambling is very much like the current crop of mobile games, with colourful graphics that allow the user to play poker, roulette, craps, and black jack and so on using their mobile handset. This can be simply for fun, or it can incorporate an element of betting against the ‘machine’ via the service provider.

Mobile gambling types of services

The gambling sector, while easy to consider as a whole, is in fact made up of at least three distinct sectors: casino style gambling, lotteries and sports betting. We will review all of them some later on.

Shortly about mobile gambling

Gambling has always been a lucrative business, with the UK’s Betting Office Licensees Association (BOLA) estimating that global gambling, in all its forms, is worth around about US$1,000bn. The traditional methods of gambling such as casino gaming, betting on sports events and playing lottery games are increasingly being augmented with electronic forms of gambling, most notably using the Internet, where casino services (such as 888.com) and betting services (such as www.williamhill.co.uk) are already generating substantial revenues. The next progression in this process is to transfer these and similar services to the mobile handset.
However, gambling services via the mobile are a relatively new phenomenon, with their deployment plagued by a plethora of cultural and regulatory hurdles. Nevetheless, some analysts have argued that such services could well be the "killer app" that mobile has been seeking, and that gambling could well become a multi-billion dollar business. In either event there is, we believe, a strong market for adult to mobile services in most regions, and alongside games and infotainment, adult will be one of the leading content types that will drive the initial use of mobile entertainment services.