Today's Trends in Online Gambling: The App's the Thing

While industry news is filled with online gaming updates, the digitization of gambling to support user convenience remains the defining contemporary trend of iGaming.

The Innovation of Digitization

Today, social or “casual” gaming platforms are being integrated with online gaming and live money jackpot technology systems. Pre-dating the Digital Age, as well as the Industrial age, the majority of casino gambling's 400-year-plus history revolves around land-based operations of course.

Phone bets in the mid-20th century were the first real innovation to gambling brought about by technology, increasing bet volumes and automating the betting process in the convenience of the user's own home.

The embrace of online gambling by the land-based casino industry has been slow and gradual, sometimes belying the speed at which the volume of online gaming sites is increasing. Today, online gambling constitutes a multi-billion dollar industry despite not being fully regulated in the majority of countries and global regions.

Worldwide Regulation

Europe is currently the hub of widespread though still incomplete regulation. The US market remains relatively untapped, as federal laws prohibiting interstate commerce have discouraged state regulation to this point.

In the past two years, Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware have chosen to exercise their rights as states to legalize online gambling, with several other states preparing to consider gambling legislation.

Rise of Mobile Apps

Don't expect online gambling to replace land-based casinos, because too many people enjoy the land-based experience. However, the early revenue increases reflected in regions such as in the American market's state of New Jersey ensure that technological adaption is sure to continue, with mobile device apps making online gambling all the more convenient for users.

Research indicates that mobile gambling is expected to reach over two fifths of the online gambling market by 2018, with the number of mobile gambling users expected to by a full one hundred million, according to Global Online Gambling & Betting Market.

Just this year, 40% of mobile users are expected to use mobile apps in order to place bets, providing the foundation for an expected expansion in 2018 of the mobile gambling industry to a market worth surpassing $100 billion.

Combining Casual Games with Legal Gambling Activity in the US

Combining casual gaming technologies with legal gambling is a key marketing component to future success, and an advertising infrastructure that could support widespread expansion of gambling in America across multiple states.

New start up bSpot has managed to combine casual games with legal online gambling via horse racing, which enables the user to legally place bets on mobile devices for gambling activity in America.

Horse racing is legal across all states, and thus allowed under federal law. Whether the wagering is considered to be gambling amounts to semantics; the bottom line is that horse racing remains the vehicle by which wagering technology is accessible to online users nationwide.

Technology to Support Mobile Devices

As far as provider platform trends, innovative casino apps are freeing the users from downloading entire casino technology software in order to play, and also personalizing their online gambling experiences further. Apps are made available according to categories and types of players, such as “Sports” or “Poker.”

Winner Sports and Bet365 Sports are among online providers who offer innovative apps for games of chance, while Online-Lottery-Tickets has one of the most effective online lottery apps.

Google Play and the App Store are supporting app distribution at the highest rates, generating the highest revenues for app distribution to date.

Mobile Apps can sustain the convenience that technology offers, so that digital gambling can find its own way into the American market, a key territory for enhancing the sustainability of the online gambling trend worldwide.