Mobile Online Gambling considered by British Columbia Lottery
British Columbia Lottery is taking into consideration online games for mobile devices and tablets .
British Columbia has been the first to offer Canadian citizens the possibility to make online wagers. After the successful start at the site opening, the gaming experience has been taken as an example to be used for online gambling opportunities in other provinces, such as Ontario, which is likely to open its own online betting website, in the very near future.
The British Columbian Lottery Corporation has made its plans for development by offering its online games and tickets through mobile and tablets based applications. As the competition is getting stronger, B.C. has made the decision of mobile expansion in order to assure its share of the market.
After the betting limit had been raised to almost then thousand dollars due to a controversial move, PlayNow.com was created about a year ago, with some problems encountered, as the site was found hacked with some personal information missing. PlayNow.com thinks about itself as being B.C.’s only legal gambling site. Even so, there are various illegal or unregulated gambling sites on the internet that offer Canadian citizens online poker and other online casino games.
According to Rich Coleman, the minister who is responsible with online gambling in British Columbia, B.C. residents are spending every year the amount of $100 million with online gambling.
B.C. Lottery PlayNow has requested a survey to find out whether consumers are willing to use their mobile phones or tablets for online gambling purposes and to play casino games like poker, slots and sports betting.
However, a result from this survey was not yet made public, nor has the decision made by BCLC, according to a spokesperson for the government run organization. Now, only 1% of the corporation’s revenues come from online gambling, but the number is to raise to 4% within the next 3 years.
The annual profit of BCLC, which goes over $1 billion, is gathered from conventional lotteries and casinos, where slot machines are replacing bingo games for a few years now.