Opinion: What odds a 'mobile only' branded bookie?
According to mobile marketing specialist Jack Sangster, formerly of Sporting Index and Centrebet, it won't be long until we see a bookmaker offering its services via mobile exclusively.
Mobile and betting have gone together like peas in a pod since the likes of Mfuse brought out the early Java-based solution for those archaic Nokias. A solution I loved, and would dearly like to have just one more go of again, like when Lego catches your eye in a shop.
But ask yourself how long it will be until we see a newcomer to the sportsbook world “ either side of the Equator – which promotes itself strictly as a mobile-only operation? Or, failing that, a current sportsbook that rebrands as mobile-only? Predictions on a postcard please!
This newcomer or rebrand will add the word ‘mobile’ to the end of the brand name e.g. ‘SangBet Mobile’ (excellent prices available to friends who disagree with my sporting opinion). And the business model will simply focus on providing a mobile – and tablet – betting platform designed to fulfil each and every mobile punter’s need, supported across every major mobile operating system.
KPIs will be geared totally to attracting and riding the wave of the generation – and the generations behind them – who are consuming this form of communication device at levels the technological world has never seen before.
This mobile-only firm will not even offer a traditional website for betting (ok they could touch up the HTML site to satisfy stakeholders who just can’t go all the way and leave the web as we know it behind), but with nearly 50% of the top sportsbooks’ user bases placing bets through their respective mobile devices each month, it’s a good starting argument to go into the boardroom with.
You will still have need for every other department within the firm, so much of the fabric wouldn’t change. You’ll still need telephone betting for those periods of downtime. But think of the saving to a business in time and cost if you excluded the traditional web-based betting platform. And the focus you could put into leading mobile innovation! It may well have already happened in the social gaming or casino world, but I doubt they have gone as far as this yet.
No one in the sportsbook world has mastered the perfect mobile betting platform. I personally don’t think anyone ever will. Constantly changing technology ensures it will always be a work in progress, never finished, just continually improving. For me, simplicity in a mobile betting offering is still very much the key, but that’s a whole other topic in itself.
I know it. You know it. The mobile space is the best, most fitting thing to happen to the gambling industry since it started to take bets from punters. Its rapidity, its portage, its discreteness knows no current bounds. So… why not?
*SangBet is as short as 8/11 that we see a mobile-only sportsbook in the world within 12 months. Telephone betting only!