According to report author Dr Windsor Holden, “Governments are generally less censorious about lotteries than other forms of gambling, with the result that mobile lotteries are likely to become established fairly quickly in a greater number of markets. Given the ubiquity of the lottery culture, it will only require a very small percentage of players to buy their tickets via the mobile handset for the resulting global revenues to run into billions of dollars”.
Dr Holden added that if existing prohibitions on casinos and betting services are lifted, then overall revenues could be substantially higher. “These forecasts are based on the premise that a number of countries – most
notably the US and China – will remain strongly opposed to the introduction of most mobile gambling services in the short and medium term. Should this situation change, then quite clearly the figures would be revised upwards
to reflect this”.
Other findings from the report include:
- 2005 will see total mobile gambling revenues pass the US$2 billion mark, including more than US$800 million on sports bets
- By 2009, the Asia-Pacific region will contribute the largest share of total gross revenues (39%) followed by Europe (37%) and North America (15%).
- Total European gambling revenues are expected to rise from US$202 million in 2004 to more than US$7.2 billion in 2009, with European sports betting revenues up from US$110 million to US$3 billion
- Despite the regulatory constraints, 7.6 million North Americans are expected to use mobile sports betting services by 2009, with more than five million using casino-style services.