Analyzing the Growth of the Mobile Sports Betting Markets
It’s becoming more and more clear now that mobile sports betting revenue and turnover will exceed that of online betting in the coming years, at least according to Betfair’s Chief Financial Office, Stephen Morona.
Betfair is currently the world’s largest sports betting exchange with more than 6 million customers in over 90 countries. While a number of Betfair’s most recent acquisitions and big customers have come from the Eastern European and Russian markets, one of the biggest sectors of growth in their company is mobile revenue.
Last year (2011), Betfair recorded £24.7 million in pre-tax profits from its mobile gambling revenue in the 6 months leading up to October, which represents more than a 20% share in sports betting revenue. Betfair’s chief executives say that they expect mobile betting revenue to reach 50% of the total gambling market by 2016.
The soaring rise and growth of mobile betting revenues have been credited to popular smart phones such as the iPhone, Android and Blackberry, who’s open-platform marketplace allows 3rd parties such as Betfair to market and allow users to download their betting apps for free.
Other bookmakers in Europe, such as William Hill Bwin, Bet365 and Ladbrokes have seen similar record levels of growth in mobile betting. William Hill announced in their public financial reports to share holders that they recorded 400% growth levels of mobile betting in 2010, which was the same year in which the William Hill iPhone App was launched.
Other reports have noted that mobile sports bettors tend to place more bets and wager more money then desktop (computer) users. According to some reports, mobile sports bettors place up to 30% more bets then desktop users, spend more time on the mobile betting site, and return much more frequently.
While the benefits of mobile sports betting to customers and bookies have always been clear, not many people expected such a high level of growth and loyalty from mobile gambling users. One of the main reasons could be that mobile users will only keep one sports betting app on their phone to place sports bets and view live odds (leading to greater loyalty), where as desktop users will have a much shorter attention span and will happily spend more time researching the internet, finding the best odds and comparing bookmakers. This makes sense too, since if I have Bet365’s betting app on my iPhone then I’m unlikely to want to search the internet for more mobile betting apps and sites.