If you thought it was convenient to play 24/7 online blackjack at home, wait until you try mobile betting. Mobile casino is the logical next step in the online casino industry, bringing your favorite online games straight to your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone. There are even some older phone models that support mobile gaming, but for the most part, they are geared towards today’s smartphones.

Mobile web casinos mean that you can play wherever you have a 3G connection. Until recently, it was a big enough affair that you could gamble anytime using your home computer, but now you can gamble practically anywhere as well. There are three basic approaches to using your mobile device for online gambling: using the mobile version of the site itself; using an iPhone application; or using an Android application.

In many cases, you can use your smartphone by simply going to the mobile version of your favorite casino website. If you don’t have a mobile version yet, you probably will soon – the market is too lucrative to ignore. You would play on your portable device just like you would on your home computer. Everything is smaller, but you have access to the same games, the same prizes, and the same bonuses.

IPhone apps are slow to arrive, although they do exist. Betfair from the UK, Paddy Power from Ireland and Bwin from Austria are three European sites that offer iPhone betting apps specific to their sites. The Betfair and Paddy Power apps work only in the UK and Ireland, while Bwin’s only works in the UK and Austria, as of late 2010, although other countries are expected to be added quickly.

It appears that Android mobile casino applications will be more abundant, due to the non-proprietary nature of the Android operating system and the increasing popularity of Android phones in Europe. Irishman Betdaq is betting his fortune on Android apps, believing that while the iPhone has fueled the expansion of smart mobile devices in general, androids may be the best long-term option, especially since getting one. Approved app for iPhone apps. storing is not easy.

There is little doubt about the future of mobile gaming. While currently only about 5% of bets placed online are on mobile devices, this number is expected to skyrocket to more than 50% in the next three to five years. A recent Juniper Research survey of mobile gaming markets shows that mobile casinos are expanding rapidly and could see mobile gambling exceed $ 48 billion by 2015.

For the most part, the most popular games on mobile devices reflect the most popular games in general internet gambling: slots, poker, and blackjack. An Android application titled “Video Poker”, which is not a web casino game, quickly garnered 50,000 downloads. Another non-casino game, “Cherry Slot Machine”, is a free Android app and it is also one of the best gaming apps for Android. Clearly, there is a hunger for these games, and it is only a matter of time before online casinos adopt mobile casino apps in droves.