Q&A: Andy Daniels discusses the future of mobile - part one

eGR Mobile Intelligence catches up with Andy Daniels, managing director of app development firm Degree 53 and former head of mobile at Betfred, to look forward at what the future might hold for the mobile gambling sector

If mobile operators thought they might get something of a respite after this summer’s World Cup, they’re well and truly mistaken. It seems that every week there’s a new device or feature that every application must cater for. With a larger iPhone predicted and increasingly huge Android devices blurring the lines between tablets and smartphones, there are some major challenges ahead. And Degree 53’s Andy Daniels is well aware of them.

Wearable devices look set to finally gain some traction in the next twelve months, and will raise the importance of both personalisation and geolocation for a joined-up user experience. It will also raise a completely new challenge for operators attempting to design for new screen sizes and building new functionality for a new product set.

There is, naturally, a section of the egaming industry that will ignore the wearables market entirely, and with so much change the question is where to focus your attention. Google Glass’ UK release last month – albeit at an RRP of £1,000 per headset – set tongues wagging but for the mobile gambling sector Daniels believes the real value lies elsewhere.

We caught up with the man who has helped lead Betfred’s mobile revolution through mobile development agency Degree 53 and is now working with a number of other firms to build up their mobile presence to find out more about the opportunities and challenges in the next twelve months.

eGR Mobile Intelligence (eGRM): What state do you consider the mobile gambling sector to be in right now?

Andy Daniels (AD): I started working in the mobile gambling space in 2003, building SMS, WAP and later Java Games. While some of these products were relatively successful I think it’s fair to say mobile gambling didn’t become mainstream until 2010 and 2011. In 2010 and 2011 the big question was “HTML5 or native?”. Now we know the answer to that question is both as we see operators using both technologies to produce compelling apps for their customers. Today we’re no longer talking about “what we’re doing on mobile”. Instead we’re taking a holistic view on what we’re doing on each platform and device category. Whether that’s an iPhone 5, Samsung Tab 2 7” or a desktop computer we now have a strategy for it. Mobile is no longer a niche but instead an equal partner in the digital gambling industry and with the understanding of the people using the devices and how they are being used, we are on the cusp of a revolution in the sector.

eGRM: Others have suggested that we’ve gone past the stage where operators are getting their offerings together, and it’s now about refinement of existing products, do you agree?

AD: Absolutely. All the top bookmakers now have all the same product verticals as online. In the key products of sports, games and casino we’re no longer at ‘version one’. We’re now seeing the products mature and in a lot of cases getting better than they are online. Many of the ‘version one’ products had clunky user experiences and didn’t play to the strengths of mobile devices. In the latest versions this has been refined as operators have learned about mobile UX and at the same time customers have become even more demanding. But compared to other mobile industries such as media we’re still some way behind and there is still a lot of refinement to do and optimising the user experience is a key part of that process.

eGRM: Are there any verticals that are demonstrably coping better with the platform than the rest?

AD: Sportsbook, games and casino are the more mature products but this is to be expected as they’ve been around longer. Now we’re seeing very good bingo and poker products and these are improving all the time. I believe there’s no product that can’t shine on mobile. However, where I think mobile has changed the game most is in-play. Before mobile betting if I was watching the football and wanted to place a bet I had to turn my computer on, load up a website in a web browser and then find the market. On a lot of PCs this could take five minutes so even if I’d bothered to switch it on, the game could have changed dramatically by the time I could place the bet so the impulse was long gone. However on mobile I can place a bet in 30 seconds which changes the game completely.