Online Casinos Look to Cell Phones for Future Gaming
For the past few years, members of the online casino industry have anticipated gambling via cellular phone as the next wave in the business. The jump in mobile gaming has never quite met expectations. But some of the reasons customers haven't made the move to mobile phones as a source of gambling venues have been removed.
Gaming industry executives at the Fifth Annual Mobile Gambling Summit think signs are getting better for the long-awaited explosion in Internet gambling on personal phones. Ladbrokes, William Hill, Bet365, and Rank Group have all signed deals with mobile software provider Mfuse. Mfuse founder Charles Palmer says, "We are developing casino and bingo applications for launch next year and we see real evidence that users are very enthusiastic about mobile gaming.''
Technological problems which held mobile gaming back have been largely eliminated. Getting speed at levels that gave acceptable playability has only recently been accomplished. The quality of individual phones was a problem, until the releases of Apple's iPhone and BlackBerry's Storm.
Matt Welch, an expert on mobile poker software, says, "We now have a 0.2 second delay for a decision in poker, which is pretty much the same speed as online. Four years ago that delay was 16 seconds, which meant a hand of poker could take as long as 20 minutes. Obviously no one wanted to play at those speeds.''
Another factor has been the familiarity of the audience with the devices. Only now is a generation that uses the full potential of mobile phones reaching legal age to gamble. Previous ages are simply not as comfortable exploring the realms the phones have opened.
Perhaps the lingering difficulty for online casinos to expand into the mobile market are the laws in the United States. The UIGEA and other troublesome laws have effectively blocked the world's largest mobile phone market from the gaming industry. U.S. phone companies would be certain to prevent any gambling sites from accessing their customers.
So, while industry experts see a continued rise in Internet gaming on cells, expert a true boom in the market once the new Congress and administration begin fixing the online gambling laws to regulate and legalize the industry.
