The mobiles were one of the best innovations of previous century. And it tasted rapid growth like no other technology. By the end of 2013, there were more mobile phones on earth than people. In the emerging markets like Africa, mobile penetration was 65% in 2012, just in 18 years after its launch in 1994. There are more mobile phones in Uganda than Light bulbs. These statistics encourage the businesses to lean more and more towards the mobile users. With the options mobile betting has provided, more and more people are trying their hands at betting in one way or the other.
Mobile betting has helped betting industry gain omnipresence. USSD betting is one among many offerings of mobile lottery that is playing a huge role in making it big. Even after expanding over the internet, lottery industry is missing out the opportunity in the emerging markets due to lack of deep internet penetration. Potential players in such markets are plenty and they could not be ignored. USSD betting is a perfect fit for such markets and can be leveraged to fill the gap in the lottery distribution.USSD betting offers an innovative way to place a bet directly from a player’s registered mobile numbers. The lottery server verifies the player details on their request to bet and instruct them to place a bet by keying in pre-assigned codes from their mobile. All the bets can be confirmed by text messages from the lottery operator along with an e-receipt. The USSD betting does not require any kind of web connectivity and that is why it is more popular and user-friendly solution for many emerging markets. One more advantage of USSD is the availability of localization options. That means if a players phone supports a preferred local language, he will be able to receive lottery data in the language of choice.
There are many features that make USSD distinctive like it works without internet and provides private channel for secure communication. USSD is also simple to use and gives freedom to play anytime, anywhere. Most of the mobile players without internet connectivity are likely to prefer this form for betting.
The list of benefits of USSD betting are not only limited to players. Lotteries can reach more players by leveraging existing and secure infrastructure of mobile operators and use that medium to connect with existing mobile users. This also helps in reducing infrastructure setup cost.
The Texas Lottery Commission data shows the Record-setting year resulting in more than $1 billion for Texas in 2013, it was the best year for sales and revenue in the Lottery’s 21 year history. The LocusPlay research paper also displays a huge jump in mobile lottery revenue which was $34.073 billion in 2013 from $1.991 billion in 2006.
Based on these stats, it is safe to forecast the future of mobile lottery and the role of USSD betting in it, as USSD has the potential to reach almost every player globally.