Asia leads mobile gambling growth
Asia leads mobile gambling growth
Agence France-Presse, Singapore
Asian punters will drive sharp growth in the mobile gambling
industry over the next five years, with global revenues forecast
to top seven billion dollars a year by 2010, a research house
said on Tuesday.
Lotteries will remain the most popular form of mobile betting
and some 200 million people worldwide will be placing bets
through their phones by 2010, Informa Telecoms and Media said in
a research summary made available to AFP.
Mobile gambling is now estimated to generate US$1.2 billion in
annual revenues, with Europe as the leading market. Informa,
based in London, said this would grow to $7.6 billion by 2010.
"Europe is likely to remain the largest market for mobile
gambling, generating $3.2 billion of annual revenues by 2010.
However, it will be closely followed by Asia-Pacific, which is
forecast to generate $2.7 billion by 2010," Informa said.
North America "is the great unknown" because the size of the
market will depend on legalization of mobile gambling, but
Informa predicted it would be a billion-dollar industry in that
region within five years.
Telecom operators and the companies that run mobile gambling
services will have to negotiate legislative, technological and
cultural hurdles to achieve growth, Informa said.
"Mobile gambling is already generating significant revenues,
but there is room for sharp growth in the years ahead," said
Stuart Dredge, the report's author.
He said the industry "must keep in mind its responsibilities
to tackle underage and problem gambling."
The implementation of codes of conduct by operators to curb
such problems will be important, Informa said, citing Britain as
a model.
After lotteries, the other popular forms of mobile gambling
are sports betting and casino gaming.
Casino gaming will become more popular as Internet casinos
migrate their games to mobile platforms, Informa said.
Sports betting will be a niche sector by comparison, although
bookmakers have been keen to launch mobile applications for their
customers, it added.