Mobile gambling to increase by 100 million by 2018

Juniper Research say that by 2018 over 164 million people will be using their smartphone or tablet device to place their bets online, buy lottery tickets or play online poker.

The recent report by the research firm says that figures will increase from the current estimated 64 million users already using these devices to more than 100 million in the next four years.

Figures include the expansion of the US market currently only three states offer online gambling but Juniper believe with more states entering the online gambling business the use of tablets and smartphones will see huge increases.

Much of the increase will be migration of current users from laptops and PCs to smart devices as online companies enhance their features to suit and improve their offerings to mobile.

Report author, Siân Rowlands, observed that ‘mobile can frequently provide a more immersive and convenient gambling experience than a desktop PC or laptop. As a result of this, gambling operators have been required to shift the nature of their organisation away from “legacy” services such as telephone betting towards becoming a more mobile-oriented company, with the aim of achieving over half of their online revenues from mobile in the next 1-3 years.’