Wednesday round-up 19/03
This weekâs news features bwin.partyâs ambitious mobile targets, mobile sportsbooks being boosted by Cheltenham and Hills incurring the wrath of mobile phone users
Bwin.party CEO Norbert Teufelberger wants half of the operatorâs revenues to be derived from mobile devices by December 2015 after it recorded a 25% fall in EBITDA for 2013. Mobile contributed just 12% of online revenues for the year, with Teufelberger concluding that bwin had fallen behind its rivals. âWe are now in the position to put mobile first in everything we do,â he said.
Many bookmakers reported boosts to turnover and sign-ups on the mobile channel throughout Cheltenham Festival week. William Hill spokesperson Jon Ivan-Duke said an increase in customers downloading the mobile app contributed towards 5,000 bets per minute being staked on Gold Cup day, while Unibet confirmed that its mobile channel reached ârecord levelsâ of turnover.
But William Hill did manage to incur the wrath of mobile phone users when it was found to be automatically redirecting them to the operatorâs App Store listing due to a link that had been wrongly set up by one of its suppliers. âOnce this was identified we acted quickly to rectify the situation. It has now been resolved â we apologise for any inconvenience,â a Hills spokesperson said.
Coral, Betfred and BetVictor all rang in the changes to their iOS apps this week. Coral bolstered its live stream options with the addition of tennis and football streams, while Betfred rolled-out a freshly designed welcome screen that includes tabs for both live events and sporting highlights. BetVictor has renamed its app to incorporate the Grand National in an attempt to repeat its number one ranking from last year.
Egaming operators may be buoyed by the release of Android Wear, Googleâs new operating system designed specifically for wearable devices. The first smartwatches arenât due to be released until later this year and real-money gambling apps are still prohibited from Google Play, but the software will allow for the live score and sporting update features many apps from gambling operators have sought to release.