A surge in social gambling activity, along with the introduction of intrastate casino and lottery services in the U.S., will help global annual wager via mobile handsets and tablets grow from under $20 billion (€16 billion) last year to $100 billion €80 billion by 2017. However, this new Juniper Research forecast notes that while sports betting currently accounted for the largest share of mobile gambling, it would be overtaken by casino gaming within five years. Dr Windsor Holden from Juniper, said: "Social gaming companies such as Zynga are seeking to move from play-for-fun casino games into real money gambling, while pureplay mobile casinos including Probability have begun to integrate with the Facebook mobile platform. In this way, consumers will be able to use their social networks to register for casino games, substantially increasing both the reach and engagement of such services." Release
