Juniper Research is looking at the mobile gambling prospects in its latest report. From there we learn that the surge in social gambling activity, along with the introduction of intrastate casino and lottery services in the US, will help push global annual wager via mobile handsets and tablets to $100 billion by 2017, up from just under $20 billion last year.
The report also looks at the dramatic increase in wager that had occurred in UK-facing sportsbooks over the past year, with several services already seeing around 20% of online wager occurring via mobile devices.
However, although sports betting currently dominates the scene, it will be overhauled by casino gaming within five years with social gaming companies like Zynga seeking to move from play-for-fun casino games into real money gambling.
Furthermore, the report observed that the US remote gambling market had effectively been reopened following the 2011 deliberation of the US Department of Justice that the country’s 1961 Wire Act applied only to sporting events. In that sense, several states have either enacted legislation specifically permitting such services, or in the case of Nevada, have begun a licensing procedure.
Finally, Juniper predicts that the increasing adoption of mobile wallet services will offer a viable alternative to credit cards as a payment mechanism for mGamblers…