In March 2011, one of the biggest online casinos announced that it had completed its one-billionth blackjack hand. When you consider the number of online casinos, you can get an idea of how popular it is. It was hard to imagine the future of the internet casino industry when it first opened in 1996. Add in smart mobile devices and you can see how the industry is growing every day.
Nielsen Media Research 2010 statistics revealed that online gambling traffic grew by 40% in the UK compared with 2009. It found that 46% online players were females and approximately 50% were middle-aged males with higher than average incomes. The National Annenberg Survey of the Young also found that nearly 16% of American college-aged men played online casino at least once per week, a dramatic increase from 2008 figures Ezwin.
Online gambling venues often attribute the rise in popularity of their sites to the development industry standards by groups like eCOGRA. This includes better customer service and a commitment towards providing safer and more reliable sites. International growth of gambling websites is also being assisted by the introduction of new payment methods online. Additionally, more currency and language options are available.
Latin America is the best region to expand online gambling. These 33 countries are home to around 570million people and are perfect for investments by online gambling firms. Latin America is being sought out by investors in financial service providers and online operator operators.
There are many reasons why Latin America has been able to expand online gaming. One is the existing telecommunications infrastructure. It includes wide availability of broadband internet and mobile internet. Internet access was accessible to nearly 200 million Latin Americans in 2009. It was growing at an average of 30% per year.
Latin America seems to be the best place for mobile gambling. The region’s device penetration was 80% in 2009, well above the average worldwide, and the country has nearly 500,000,000 people on its mobile networks. This combined with the rapidly evolving graphics for mobile devices makes it easy to see why online casinos should consider Latin America when expanding.
Mobile device gambling doesn’t have to be a Latin American thing. Mobile devices are growing rapidly in popularity around the world and web casinos who develop apps for them are the ones that will be first in line in order to capitalize on this market.
Online gambling has evolved a lot since 1996. Consumers are reassured by more regulations and there are many payments and currency options. The graphics and software platforms are much better than ever. Online casinos are taking a different approach to customer service. And mobile handheld devices, such as Android phones and iPhones, are opening up new areas in online gambling. This is a great time for online gambling.