Gambling websites and mobile app

[Mario The Gambler]

What percentage (approximately) of gambing portal website visitors use a mobile application (tablet, smartphone, etc)?

As you know, about 50% of people use a mobile application to surf over the internet.
Is this percentage is lower for visitors to websites related to gambling?

Do we really need to make websites that are also optimized for mobile app?

Thank you very much in advance!

[chaumi]

Must admit I am slightly dubious about how important it really is to optimize for mobile.

Looking at my visitors, I get plenty of hits from users on mobiles...and just as many of these go on to visit multiple (non mobile optimized) pages as do desktop visitors.

It's not cut and dried, of course...maybe those visitors would go through even more pages if they got a 'better' experience, maybe the mobile users that just bounced would have stayed longer/hit more pages....and my samples will be nowhere near enough to be conclusive.

I'm sure someone will come up with some figures or proof to prove it either way.

All that said, there are an awful lot of (seemingly) educated industry people saying to optimize for mobile. Usage is growing and will not stop. Given there are some fairly simple and reasonably low cost ways (recognize low cost to one person may be expensive for another) of serving up optimized pages to mobile visitors it would seem sensible to go down that route if possible.

[TheGooner]

My opinion :

Remember - when you hear an "expert" talk - you still need to engage your own critical thinking.

Mobile experts are engaged by sites with mobile offerings. It's their job to talk up this specific niche in the industry. To do anything else - to honestly appraise the situation - is to put the noose around their own neck and income.

Every year since about 2007 was going to be the "year of the mobile". Every year has disappointed the experts. But it's always going to happen this year / next year - and they offer incredible projections of the size of the market in 10 years time.

Of course people use mobile to surf the net - but it's to find basic news / information - or stream songs / video. The small screen is not immersive, and betting / playing games on your phone is always going to be the "poor cousin" compared to a big screen environment.

Look - I have placed sports bets with a mobile app. It was Ok. But I didn't signup to the site via mobile, and I wouldn't because when I join a site I want to check it out and have privacy to entire personal details. Gaming sites might need mobile applications to support this small segment - but affiliate sites dont.

To admit that small screen gaming is a poorly implemented fad, and to admit that the new screens, the 10 inch tablets tablet and hi-res eye-wear will support big screen formats just fine would be to admit that they "the experts" were W-R-O-N-G.

You won't ever see that - you'll just see these experts quietly disappear and move off into a new niche - maybe like Binary options or Bitcoin deposits and start the hype all over again.

But that's just MY opinion guys - do your own research - and draw your own conclusions.

[chaumi]

Excellent points, Gooner. I guess a lot of this may depend on how successful you already are to a point.

For me, if I got one conversion and a dozen good value shares or one good link because someone liked the mobile optimization of my site...and I was able to optimize it at low enough cost (in either time or cash) then I'd probably think that was worthwhile (to me).

Agree with every point. Experience brings strong perception!

[louie.wilson]

Same here.
Been hearing about hearing about the mobile revolution for a while now, even when working in another industry before joining the gambling one.
And if it's TRUE that mobile is getting big, it took much longer for our clients at the time to actually start spending any money on mobile. And i find it to be true also now for gambling, at an even higher level.

Thing giving me hope about casino on mobile now is the fact i can see more and more facebook app on mobile targeting me.
All our brands are mobile, but as of today, majority still deposits from desktop.