Thursday, January 18, 2007

Despite the strengthening of legal barriers to its development in the US,
prospects for the development of the global mobile gambling market remain
strong, according to Juniper Research. In new forecasts for the mobile
gambling market, Juniper predicts that the global market for all forms of
mobile gambling (casinos, lotteries and sports betting) will grow from $1.35
billion in 2006 to $16.6 billion by 2011 in terms of gross value of bets
placed. "Juniper Research published its last full report on mobile gambling
in June 2006. Following the tightening of legal barriers to all forms of
online gambling in the USA we decided to revisit our market forecasts as
clearly the environment had changed," author Bruce Gibson commented. "The
new forecasts confirm that there is still great potential for mobile
gambling services where legislation permits. However, we have certainly
dramatically cut back forecasts for the development of the North American
market." Europe is currently seen to be the largest market for mobile
gambling, with an estimated $665 million in bets placed in 2006. However, it
is forecast to be overtaken by the rapidly expanding Asia Pacific market by
2008. The Asian market is expected to reach over $6.7 billion by 2011, in
terms of value of bets placed. Bruce Gibson goes on to say: "The downgrading
of forecasts for the North American market increases the focus on the key
markets of Europe and Asia Pacific. These two markets are now expected to
contribute over 80% of the value of bets placed through to 2011." Sports
betting is currently estimated to be the largest sector in mobile gambling,
opening up a valuable additional channel to existing gamblers as well as
creating opportunities in new markets. Lotteries currently represents the
second largest sector, but is forecast to take the top spot by 2010 as
lotteries and related games, such as bingo, exploit the mass market mobile
channel.