Study: Mobile gambling to take off next year

Mobile gambling is poised to lose its status as a non-industry and become a major wireless content generator next year as regulatory and technical hurdles are overcome, according to a new study from U.K. media research firm Visiongain.

Visiongain predicts that mobile gambling, or m-gambling, will take off in the second quarter of next year and grow into a $4.26 billion global industry in 2008. The limited number of handsets suitable for m-gambling and the relatively few gambling operators with any kind of wireless presence have limited opportunities in the sector so far, Visiongain found. But more companies have begun taking an interest in the potentially lucrative m-commerce application, and several encouraging trials are driving new innovations that will make m-gambling much easier in the future, Visiongain found.

In Hong Kong, the city-run horse racing franchise known as the Hong Kong Jockey Club has started taking bets over mobile handsets. In the U.K., one carrier--Hutchison 3G’s 3--has launched a fixed-odds m-gambling service in collaboration with Zone4Play offering casino games with real payouts over its UMTS network.

“Initial trials of mobile gambling sites have confirmed the channel as viable sources of income for gambling operators,” said Jean Pierre Aubertin, the research report’s author.