The mobile betting industry is set to be worth $62billion by 2018 – that’s an awful lot of accumulators. But if you take a look around on Saturday afternoon at the match, in the pub, or even out on the street as sports fans follow their partners around the shops, you’ll notice plenty of people glancing at their devices wondering if the £60 they might win if Forest Green get a result at Halifax bares fruition.
Of course nobody would put that bet on, The Shay is a fortress, but the point is still there – mobile betting has got huge.
The enhanced development of smartphone technology over the past few years, to the point where one in five people across the world own a device, has meant that more and more people are able to wager whenever wherever, and they operators are taking advantage.
In 2013 alone William Hill saw a 198% increase in revenue, whilst this year the World Cup has also had a major impact on how we bet.
The growth of push notifications has been one of the reasons why bookmakers have been so successful and that current trend looks set to continue.
In July 2014, Nadvav Linden, Head of Affiliation at William Hill engaged in a Talking Mobile discussion where he acknowledged that push notifications are a“Very successful” marketing approach.
However, Mr Linden went on to say that the key to their push notification success is not to annoy or irritate users.
“We are aware of the potential to overload customers with messages so we ensure to only send the most appealing alerts and offers at all times”.
Not that customers aren’t currently enjoying what mobile has to offer.
The popularity of mobile betting to begin with stems largely from live betting and such is the dominance of smartphones now that during the World Cup £51million of Swedish-based operator Unibet’s £112million turnover came from live betting. And that’s only going to increase as technology continues to improve.
The likelihood is that the release of next generation smartphones and tablets will be faster, sharper, and have the capabilities to do more. Which betting fans in turn will expect from operators. Although where that will take the next stage of apps we don’t know.
George added, “Things can change very fast. Four years ago we didn’t even have an app. We do have some great ideas and projects underway. We want to continue to put customers at the centre of the experience.”
