The majority of the adult public in the UK have a mobile phone in their pocket throughout the day, giving them quick and convenient access to the internet and all mobile-optimised services.

The fast-adapting online casino industry was quick to recognise the burgeoning mobile trends and, for a long time, have been creating the majority of new games with a mobile-first mindset. Now, players seek online reviews to find the best mobile casino games in the UK to make sure that they can enjoy gaming on the go.

But what is causing the increasing popularity of casino apps?

Rise of mobiles

The rise in mobile penetration has had a huge impact on the games industry. As of 2018, 51 per cent of the global games market was made up of mobile revenue, showing a stark 25.5 per cent year-on-year increase. Mobile gaming is incredibly popular, with 2018 seeing over 113 billion smartphone apps downloaded across Apple and Android devices globally, with consumer spending rising 20 per cent year-on-year to $76 billion.

Given that mobile gaming is generally seen as a lesser form of gaming compared to playing on a console or computer – and yet it still rakes in huge amounts of revenue – it makes sense that mobile gaming casino apps which deliver a very similar offering to online casino websites would be even more popular with the iGaming crowd than other mobile gaming would be with the traditional video gaming audience.

‘Mobilfication’ in online gambling

In 2017, the size of the online gambling market hit $45.8 billion and was expected to rise to $94.4 billion by 2024, which is as a result of the increase in the accessibility of casino apps. UK gambling reports show that the gross gambling yield for the remote sector accounted for £5.4 billion, marking a 13.7 per cent year-on-year increase in 2018.

One of the main contributing factors to the Poker Boom of 2003 was the adoption of online poker. Now, poker continues to increase its popularity across the world through poker apps. Creating poker apps is relatively simple compared to casino apps due to the animations and controls being less demanding and varied, but the best poker apps have been able to create a mobile gaming environment akin to the online poker environment.

The majority of the best poker apps are proprietary poker apps, wholly owned by the software provider. The best casino apps, however, need to incorporate games from all of their online casino developers. At this point, online and mobile gaming options are very similar when comparing the offering of games at the website and casino apps of the same brand.

Moving slot games, video table games, and poker games to real money apps isn’t too difficult given the complexities of the games and animations; the true feat of ‘mobilfication’ for online casinos came when developers optimised live casino apps. Live casino games are very heavy due to the need to live stream the action and utilise a similar UI to the website version for people to play. Now, there are many live casino apps and live casino games integrated into the best casino apps.

As the best casino apps all boast a similar, if not the same, offering as their website counterparts, people will naturally turn to their mobiles to enjoy the games because they’re more convenient and accessible. Games continue to join casino apps when they are added to casino websites, leading to a constant increase in popularity due to the convenience of mobile gaming.