MOBILE SPORTS BETTING FEATURE
ith the huge growth in mobile sports betting, it would be tempting to see this as a mature market with the big winners sewn up. The reality is anything but. And if a company isn’t focused on the next step, then they will likely be left behind. Consumers have been using mobile phones to place bets since the earliest days of online gambling. But as Juergen Reutter, William Hill’s director of mobile, explains, in the past 12 months the sector has changed beyond recognition. “For many years we’ve seen that mobile has been a bit of an experimental add-on in companies’ strategies, but in the past few years we have seen a paradigm shift,” he says. Smartphones have changed consumer behaviour, and mobile betting is now big business. William Hill reported growth of 145% in mobile sports betting revenue and 298% in mobile gaming revenue in its Q1 2013 results. Even taking into account that this was growth from a relatively low base, it’s still mightily impressive stuff. But with big revenues come equally big challenges. And how the ?rms within the egaming sector deal with those challenges will de?ne the winners and losers in the future.
Mobile sports betting is driving growth at the major egaming brands
THE BIG WINNERS
One of the most impressive aspects of the boom in mobile is that the revenue operators are seeing is incremental and not simply a cannibalisation of online
revenues. For proof of this you need look no further than Paddy Power. The Irish ?rm has described itself as “disproportionately large” within the mobile segment, with a 27% market share. In 2012 mobile turnover in its online sportsbook increased by 121%, contributing €442m to its 29% increase in digital turnover. Without the growth in mobile, sports betting turnover would have
grown at a far more modest 7% for the year. Another ?rm to have seen major growth in mobile is Betfair, and Ben Carter, the operator’s head of digital, says this is down to the anytime, anywhere nature of the channel. “It sounds too obvious, but the ability of mobile to enable sports bettors to place a bet wherever and whenever they want should not be underestimated. Mobile enables people
AS A PERCENTAGE OF SPORTS BETTING REVENUE IN Q1 2013
BETSSON 10% WILLIAM HILL 35% PADDY POWER 50%*