Lotteries, betting and casino style gambling are predicted to generate over $2 billion for the mobile phone industry in 2006, according to a new report by Juniper Research.
The research reveals that lotteries will be the largest money-spinners, with gross revenues of nearly $7.9 billion worldwide, followed by sports betting predicted to take $6.9 billion, and casino style gaming at $4.5 billion.
Dr. Windsor Holden, author of the report, said: “Governments are generally less censorious about lotteries than other forms of gambling, with the result that mobile lotteries are likely to become established fairly quickly in a greater number of markets. Given the ubiquity of the lottery culture, it will only require a very small percentage of players to buy their tickets via the mobile handset for the resulting global revenues to run into billions of dollars.”
He added: “These forecasts are based on the premise that a number of countries, most notably the US and China will remain strongly opposed to the introduction of mobile gambling services in the short and medium term. Should this situation change, then quite clearly the figures would be revised upwards to reflect this.”
Other findings from the report predict that 2005 will see total mobile gambling exceed the $2 billion mark, including more than $800 million spent on sports bets.
Total European gambling revenues are expected to rise from $202 million in 2004 to more than $7.9 billion in 2009, with European sports betting revenues up from $110 million to $3 billion.
A recent report by YouGov stated that since 2003, the number of Britons betting online has risen a staggering 556%, with almost 80% of Europe’s online players being British (see UK Females Set To Lead Online Gambling).
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