Cairns – Gambling games for smartphones and tablets are being hailed as the future for many worldwide gaming companies.
Mobile online gambling is growing as smartphones and tablets become more popular and affordable, process more information and present higher quality images and sounds.
Juniper Research, a UK mobile commerce analysis firm, says the deregulation of online gambling in the US and Europe and the development of the Chinese market will push annual wagers on mobile gambling platforms to more than $US100 billion in 2017.
The most rapid growth in mobile gambling is expected to come from casino games: roulette, blackjack, poker and virtual slot games.
Aristocrat chief executive Jamie Odell says consumers have a growing appetite for gambling games on mobile devices, and Aristocrat is making new games and modifying its existing ones for mobile platforms.
“Intuitively, that’s where my heart says we should be moving to: to the future,” Mr Odell says.
Aristocrat is spending a lot of time on mobile strategy: assessing how the technology can be used inside and outside casinos, and in social media, and determining what information mobile platforms could deliver to help casino owners improve their business.
In 2012, Aristocrat bought US-based Product Madness, one of the top operators of slot games on Facebook.
Aristocrat has also launched its offering of online casino games, called nLive, in North America, as it prepares for online gaming becoming legalised in more state jurisdictions there. In Australia, the provision of online casino games is prohibited.
But consumers in Australia can access international online gaming sites, and gaming companies in Australia can provide online gambling services to customers in other countries.
Consumers can also access online gambling games in which they do not play with real money.
Players pay for virtual currency to play slot games, sports games and others, but earnings within the game cannot be cashed out.
The non-paying gambling games are plentiful on Facebook.
