Popularity of Mobile Casinos Growing Beyond Wildest Dreams
A spate of recent analysis and studies shows that mobile casinos are more popular than ever, with truly astounding growth reported in and forecast for all areas of gambling in the medium.
A study undertaken by industry analysts at Gartner advisory firm projected that the growing popularity of mobile gambling shows no signs of stopping: Some $5.6 billion dollars will be made in mobile gaming end-user revenue in 2010 and this figure is expected to reach $11.4 billion in 2014. A 2009 study from Juniper Research figured that the mobile casino market alone would be worth over $1 billion by 2011.
The Gartner study also calculated that mobile devices users will download $6.2 billion worth of applications at online stores this year, representing a doubling of 2009 revenues and just 20% of all app downloads.
Meanwhile, in a report released in April, advisory firm Comscore estimated that 7.6% of all Smartphone users play mobile casino games with some regularity. And while the number of mobile gamers in the United States market decreased by 13% from 2008 to 2009, the number of Smartphone gamers increased by a whopping 60%. The number of players at online casinos and mobile casinos stayed basically the same – of importance here is the gray area in which Internet betting finds itself under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).
Within mobile gaming, the Juniper study saw the biggest wave of popularity to come in mobile lotteries, which could reach 41% of all mobile gambling expenditures by the end of next year. Juniper forecasts mobile casino gambling to grow quickly, but not quite as quickly as lotteries and sports betting.
