British mobile gambling provider Probability plc has revealed that it is in talks with potential U.S. partners to break into the changing American gambling market as Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey relax online betting restrictions.
Chief Executive Officer Charles Cohen, an Oxford University graduate who co-founded Probability in 2004, believes the time is ripe for an American venture when state-by-state legalization is already taking place.
"Within a couple of years, half the population of the U.S. will live either in a state or very close to somewhere they can gamble for real money through their mobile phone or PC. We are getting a lot of interest from U.S. companies," said Cohen.
According to gambling research group H2 Gambling Capital global online gambling market, valued at Euro 21.73 billion ($28.43 billion) in 2012, is forecast to grow almost 30 percent over the next three years.
Meanwhile, the USA casino owners MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment Corp are getting closer to making their own online offerings in partnership with Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment plc and 888 Holdings plc.
Consequently, mobile gaming will likely account for about 60 percent of the total online gambling market in Europe in 3-5 years, and Probability alone has a market value of about GBP 22 million ($34 million), generating over 75 percent of its revenue from smartphones.
Half of that revenue comes from Apple iOS device users, although Cohen thinks Apple will have only 30 percent of revenue within the next year or so as more people buy phones using Google Inc's Android operating system.
H2 Gambling Capital valued the global mobile gambling market at Euro 3.4 billion ($4.43 billion) last year, or about 15 percent of the total online gambling market.
As for the social gaming market, Cohen opines: "We ourselves don't want to go into the social gaming business because it's a very different business to real-money gaming ... we would look at it through partnerships."