The Role of Mobile Technology in the Rise of Online Betting

Online betting is now one of the most common methods used when placing a wager. Its growth has gone hand in hand with improvements in mobile technology.

Imagine sitting down on a Saturday afternoon to watch a long-awaited sporting event. You settle into the sofa with your snacks, turn on the television and reach for your phone to check the odds of a win for your local team. Finding your mobile device blank and without charge, panic sets in. Such is the psychological link between sports and betting these days. But just how much is technology responsible for the rise in popularity of online betting?

The Infancy Phase of Online Betting

In the early days of online betting, the technology we associate with it today was fledgling or non-existent. Most providers of online casinos built their own websites and games. Only a few companies worked in the field, such as the developers Microgaming, who were one of the first to create gambling software and sell it to other operators.

Costa Rica began to become a hub for the online betting market, which served mainly the US at the time. As legislation was non-existent, both there and in North America, it was easy to set up and take bets online from the US. By the end of the 1990s, many of the technologies that power the industry today were beginning to appear. One company at the time that grabbed the chance wholeheartedly was Intertops, which had been operating since the 1980s but took the worlds first commercial online bet in 1996.

Discussing the technology available at the time, in an interview with Gambling Insider, a spokesperson for the company exclaimed: “Affiliate marketing did not exist at all, while the World Wide Web was in its infancy. Tracking mechanisms, which are required for affiliate marketing programmes, did not exist. Intertops launched its affiliate programme back in 1999, combining sports and casino profits of referred players, with poker then added in 2003. The whole online gaming industry did not exist 20 years ago. Intertops had to invent, plan, develop and programme everything itself through every single service. Today, you can more or less get everything from scratch and easily adapt to changing environments.”

The tech involved in affiliate marketing has played a huge part in the growth of the betting industry online. This is the process of using a third-party website to advertise a product. Generally, this is through the use of server-to-server tracking links and cookies. When someone clicks on the link provided by the affiliate and sends it to a vendor’s website, then this is tracked and results in a percentage payout for them.

Affiliate marketing has pushed the industry forward, making gambling companies accountable. Affiliates need the trust of customers, and so rank and review sites thoroughly. This has resulted in informative websites such as SBO.net, which will find people the best offers and sports gambling sites based on a range of varied factors. In return, gambling companies have strived to become top of affiliate lists, improving customer service, security and choice.

How Smartphone Adoption Became the Vital Connection

According to the Pew Research Centre, mobile adoption in the United States is now almost a given, with an uptake of 98%. The rate for those who own a smartphone is almost equal, at 91%. This has risen 35% since 2011. There is also very little change between other demographic categories, including age, gender and ethnicity. Most people in the US now have a device of some sort, and 16% of adults are smartphone-only internet users.

When it comes to connecting these devices to the internet, the picture is very much the same. Around 90% of the US, equating to 300 million people, live in an area that is served by 5G low-band networks. Between 210–300 million are covered by 5G mid-band. In fact, subscriptions to 5G services have grown faster than any previous generation, and 53% of smartphone subscriptions in the US subscribe to a 5G network.

These fast connections are crucial. They start from the desire to place a bet with the customer. This travels to the device in the pocket and through the infrastructure that sends the information, in an instant. This is now the backbone of modern online betting.

The Rise of Online Gambling in the United States

The first commercially available 5G network in the US came online in April 2019. This came at just the right time, as in 2018, the US Supreme Court overturned a law that had prohibited gambling across most of the United States. It was now up to the states themselves to decide if they would allow betting and casinos.

While Nevada was the only state allowed to have online betting before, once states could decide on their own fate, changes came quickly. New Jersey had its bill drafted by August 1st, with West Virginia following suit by December 27th. Since then, many states have adopted bills, are in the process, or have decided not to allow online betting. Sports betting is now legal in 37 states.

While total figures for 2025 are yet to be collated, figures released in 2024 showed that the US sports betting industry was worth a sizable $13.71 billion. This was a record amount, up from previous totals of $11.04 billion. This equated to $150 billion worth of bets. Most of this tends to happen in the fourth quarter of the year, with betting up 7.3% in this period year on year. Crucially, 30% of this total came from digital sources, a rise of 25%.

The Technology Behind Online Payment Methods

Global online gambling first appeared back in 1994. It occurred when Antigua and Barbuda passed the Free Trade and Processing Zone Act. Allowing licenses for gambling operations also allowed people to create them online. However, it was only possible with the emergence of safe payment technology.

When it comes to payment made through mobile tech, the first pioneers of this were actually Coca-Cola. They created a scheme whereby people in Helsinki could pay for vending machine purchases using text messages. Merita Bank in Finland also launched a phone and SMS based banking system at this point, opening the door for commercially viable mobile payments.

In the early days of gambling, while these technologies were emerging, people generally paid by credit and debit cards or made bank transfers. Yet as new payment methods arrived, one thing stood in the gambling companies’ way: The shadow of the high-risk merchant. This is a business that is deemed a problem for payment providers for several reasons, including high ticket items, chargeback numbers and fraud. You may be surprised to realise that even furniture retailers are often classed under this umbrella.

Conversely, one popular and emerging form of payment for online gambling in the modern age is not a modern technology at all. Voucher payments, in which people buy a prepaid card for a physical outlet and transfer the balance, are gaining popularity. These are useful in countries and areas where access to traditional banking may be problematic or unsafe. It also comes with several other advantages, mainly being more conducive to safer gambling. Forecasts are that the prepaid voucher market will reach $4 trillion by 2030 alone.

The Unstoppable Rise of the App

The Nokia 6110 was the first phone to have what would be considered an app by today’s standards, when it came bundled with the game ‘Snake’. However, it was not until June 2007, with the release of the iPhone, that a long-held dream by Steve Jobs came to life: The ability to sell software over a phone network.

With apps, the limitations of a web browser were gone. Direct-to-consumer functionality, such as touch screens, cameras, GPS locations and access to personalization, was now available. They also allowed people to use them offline, and they could run faster and more smoothly as they were installed on a device. Crucially, they were on a smartphone, which was fast becoming a 24/7 accessory in the modern digital world.

By May 2010, the first betting app had been launched. Available in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the company that launched it was eager to push a global first in its design. The new app represented an industry first: using GPS to locate and verify a customer’s location before they were permitted to bet. This use of GPS technology is now something we take for granted.

The Bright and Social Future of Betting Technology

Look online, and betting companies will espouse the virtues of the next generation being filled with VR, and augmented reality. The truth is that very little of this is actually inherent in modern sports betting or even in casinos. What does exist, however, is a very human desire, one to connect on a social level.

This has been seen in the realm of casino gaming. People have taken on live casino wholeheartedly, utilizing streaming technology to recreate some of the social interaction lost in the digital world. The gamified nature of crash gaming, with its communal betting pools, is also something that has been grabbed with both hands by the entertainment community.

Betting is here to stay and more markets are emerging across the globe. This year, the UAE gave its first licenses to online betting sites, in an area of the world where gambling has typically been taboo. It is hard to see what added features could make online gambling better or more efficient, as it now has the enhanced security and choice required. The platforms of the future will not come from creating new digital frontiers, but connecting both the world of the mobile device with that of the human experience.