Going Mobile as the Future of Real Money Gaming
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The global gambling market is estimated to have been valued at over 711 billion USD by the end of 2020. It is projected to continue to prosper and be worth over 876 billion USD in the next five years with a CAGR of 3.6 percent. While the gambling industry has been steadily growing over the last few years, the pandemic has somehow boosted its growth through the industry’s online sector.
Statista reported that the online segment of the gambling industry alone is already valued at over 66.7 billion USD and this has been a big jump from how much it was worth during the previous year which is 58.9 billion. Basing on how the industry is currently doing, the online gambling market should then be worth over 92.9 billion USD in two more years.
Online gaming involves both playing and betting on casino and bookie sites with a computer and using the best online casino app for Android and iOS. While many would play games on their computers and laptops, experts see mobile as the site where the industry is heading and mainly because of how convenient it is.
Mobile Gaming in Numbers
The rise of mobile gambling or gaming, in general, is related to how smartphones are becoming more accessible than ever. Smartphones, nowadays, are no longer necessarily expensive. These devices are becoming affordable yet powerful that many would rather invest in these devices than a computer or laptop.
According to the latest data released by GSMA Intelligence, there are now over 5.2 billion unique mobile users around the world and 4.3 billion of these people are active mobile internet users. It also has been reported that the population of mobile users worldwide is growing at a rate of 2.3 percent each year.
When it comes to Android devices, 21 percent of downloaded apps are under the gaming category while this is at 25 percent for iOS devices. Gaming is also found to account for around 43 percent of smartphone usage. Tech Jury reports that 62 percent of people would install games on their smartphone within the week of owning it.
Today, it is estimated that there are already over 2.2 billion mobile gamers worldwide and 78 percent of them are Android users. When it comes to the games that people play, over half of the mobile gamers would play puzzle games. Social casino games and real money games themselves are also gaining quite a popularity.
This is why the biggest online casinos and bookies now have native apps that their customers can download. Many of them are not available on Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, however, as these platforms are strict when it comes to gambling-related apps. Still, this doesn’t deter gambling companies from shifting a significant part of their focus to the section of the mobile app. After all, casino players can just easily go to their websites to download and install their apps.
It’s also not a lost cause because there is hope that gambling apps will eventually be on these platforms. Earlier this year, Google did finally allow gambling apps to be available on the Play Store in the US and 14 other countries including Belgium, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, New Zealand, Norway, Colombia, Finland, Japan, Romania, and Mexico.
These are countries where certain forms of online gambling are allowed as according to Google only companies that are approved by the government or are carrying a license issued by the appropriate gambling authority in specific countries will be allowed on the platform. This is also after they go through an application process on the platform itself.
Google also addressed companies that are not eligible for this and said, “For all other apps which do not meet the eligibility requirements for gambling apps noted above, we don’t allow content or services that enable or facilitate users’ ability to wager, stake, or participate using real money (including in-app items purchased with money) to obtain a prize of real-world monetary value.”
With Google making this move, it’s no longer improbable that we’ll see gambling apps more available on such platforms in the coming years. Well, the deciding point of whether Google or Apple will allow gambling apps to be easily accessible will also depend on gambling laws and regulations in certain countries.
Now that online gambling is becoming more popular and widely accepted, we can already say that eventually, more countries will have progressive online gambling laws. By then, real money gaming will just be on the same level as regular gaming in terms of popularity.
