Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | May 2012 90 ONEworks Moving Markets ONEworks™ says apps for betting via mobile phone are the future for online sports books Upwardly mobile—customers bet modestly but often when wagering by cell phone O NEworks™—a world leader in business- to-business online platforms for sports betting—recently launched its mobile interface optimised for smartphones. It allows betting companies’ customers to place a wager while on the move. Tom Hall, Business Development director for ONEworks, explains to Inside Asian Gaming why ‘mobile’ is the future for online betting. Inside Asian Gaming : How has the business developed since we spoke late last year? Tom Hall : We’ve decided to focus on mobile—not just because mobile communications are becoming popular around the world, but because of the convergence of personal computer and mobile technologies as ways of accessing the Internet. Also sports betting lends itself to delivery via mobile devices, whereas with casino games or poker, it’s much more complicated to deliver them that way. How are you building that mobile platform? The iPhone app world and the ease of using those apps has taken the mobile communications world by storm. We prefer to have something that’s cross-platform, so we’ve built on HTML5 [programming language] a product that works on iPhone and works on Android, without having to buy it from an app store. It’s very easy to use. And with the Asian operational experience of ONEworks and the insight we’ve gained from that; it’s also very fast. It allows you to do lots of ‘in play’ parlays [also known as accumulator bets; linking two or more bets together] during games—which Asian customers want, but are not so common on applications built by other people. Do people have to register online via their phone to get an app? Content delivery is optimised via the smartphone browser, and you have to be a customer of the betting operator. At this time the Asian [betting] operators still want the customers to go to their website and sign up, and then they give them access to the mobile version. Whatwe’vebeenseeingisthatcustomers have been using their mobile devices to bet more often, but in smaller amounts each transaction. Because customers are betting from a bar, or while they’re watching the