Chapter 3: Betting and connected portable devices
SportzRush. “This in turn presents different challenges for both affiliates and operators alike.
“On mobile web it is about optimising the user experience with far too few operators differentiating
meaningfully between acquisition/conversion on desktop and that on mobile. Those that manage it
will see huge rewards in the next 12 months.
“Within the Apple App Store competition between sports betting and related gambling apps gets
tougher and tougher, meaning ranking for brand and key search terms is far more difficult than it
was 12 months ago. More and more operators recognise the limitations of a single ‘1 app does it all’
approach and are favouring of a multi-app approach, meaning ranking for multiple gambling search
terms and keywords.
“Finally the cost of acquiring gambling customers via mobile advertising is also rising. Competition in
regulated markets is tougher than ever especially on mobile.”
Peter Bertilsson, President and chief executive, Metric Gaming, adds: “The mobile betting trend
remains strong and undeniable, and we will naturally see huge technological strides in this
industry as data and bandwidth demands continue to skyrocket.
“Sports wagering especially stands to gain from these developments, as the ability to stream games
live in real time reliably from a mobile device (which puts tremendous stress on outdated platforms)
will only fuel the already burgeoning mobile in-game sports betting market.
“At Metric we identified an opportunity to capitalise on this trend by building a mobile-first sports
wagering platform from scratch – a daunting and risky undertaking for any established operator, but
one that as a post-‘mobile revolution’ start-up we could take on.
“Having a sleek, modern and reliable mobile offering will be an absolute necessity in the new year [i.e.
2016], and we are likely to see more competitive differentiation between operators on that basis.”
Unique Mobile Phone Subscribers (millions)
2,346 2,569
2008
2009
2,798
2010
3,013
2011
3,210
2012
3,463
2013
3,636
2014
3,838
2015
4,020
4,191
2016
2017
4,336
4,470
2018
2019
4,596
2020
Source: GSMA Intelligence
3.2 Drivers for mobile betting
With an increase in the uptake of wireless smartphones such as the iPhone, mobile betting has
been growing at a fast pace. The first ever mobile bet was placed by an O2 user with Ladbrokes on a
Brazil win versus Turkey in a Group C match for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, at odds of 8/15. Other early
adopters of mobile betting technology were Betfair, Tabcorp and Paddy Power.
80 Digital Sports Betting