Mobile Gambling To Grow To US$7.6 Billion, Regulation Needed

The basic figure from Informa Telecoms and Media was released last week, but this report goes into a bit more detail.
The market for mobile gambling is expected to rise form US$1.2 billion this year to $7.6 billion by 2010, when 200 million people will be using the service. Of this sum, $3.2 billion will come from Europe and $2.7 billion from the Asia Pacific region. It is unknown whether mobile gambling will be legalised in North America so predictions are difficult — Informa settled on the market being $979 million by 2010.
“However, to reach this goal, operators and the companies who run mobile gambling services will have to negotiate legislative, technological and cultural hurdles.” Operators and service-providers will need to ensure that underage consumers cannot gamble on their mobiles (or the government will do it for them) and include ways to monitor potential problem-gamblers.
The Informa report predicts lotteries will be the most popular form of gambling because it will be supported by the most handsets, and casino gambling will also be popular. Interestingly, sports betting is expected to be a niche-sector by comparison, despite the strong moves of many sporting leagues into the mobile space. I would expect that sports betting services that are combined with sports news and other sports-related services would do well.
Related stories:
O2 Launches Betting Exchange On Xda II
Playwin Lottery On Mobile Too In Mumbai
Mobile Gambling Taking Off

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