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Mobile gambling is calling

Mobile gambling revenue is predicted to exceed US $19.3 billion by 2009, according to a new report from Juniper Research, as the number of mobile casinos, lotteries and sports betting services increase rapidly.

Mobile gambling, already a $468 million industry (2004) is projected to achieve revenues of over $2 billion in 2005 as part of a steady growth pattern mirroring the growth of online gambling. However, it is lotteries that are making the industry the lion’s share of the revenue.

“Governments are generally less censorious about lotteries than other forms of gambling, with the result that mobile lotteries are likely to become established fairly quickly in a greater number of markets,” observed Dr. Windsor Holden, author of the report. “Given the ubiquity of the lottery culture, it will only require a very small percentage of players to buy their tickets via the mobile handset for the resulting global revenues to run into billions of dollars”.

These figures could however all be up for revision, should the existing regulations binding casinos and betting services be altered in the near future. “These forecasts are based on the premise that a number of countries – most notably the US and China – will remain strongly opposed to the introduction of most mobile gambling services in the short and medium term. Should this situation change, then quite clearly the figures would be revised upwards to reflect this”, added Holden.

Current predictions therefore show the Asia-Pacific region to be the largest contributor to total gross revenues by 2009, accounting for 39%, followed by Europe (37%), and North America (15%).