Is Online Bingo Coming to the iPhone?

Betfair UK has recently made history being the first company allowed to offer a gambling-related content for iPhone, when it released an app for iPhone last week -   Although not offering any type of online bingo games, this downloadable application allows users to access Betfair's exchange platform from the iPhone, and this offering illustrates an apparent marked change in Apple's policy banning gambling apps.  Up until now, Apple was reluctant to offer such apps, probably for fear of running afoul of U.S. online gaming regulations.  However, Charles Palmer, Betfair's head of mobile technology, asserted that Apple did not attach any terms or conditions to the app to prevent it from being used for gambling.

Betfair seems to have taken the requisite steps to impart a level of comfort to Apple to facilitate the app's approval.  These include age verification, know your customer (KYC) and a GPS component which only permits users physically located in the UK or Ireland to place wagers.  Palmer indicates that this geo-location fail-safe was proactively designed by Betfair, but probably played a big role in helping Apple permit this application.

Considering the popularity of Apple’s portable devices – the iPhone and the recently launched iPad, this new development can prove to have a huge impact upon the adoption of mobile among the UK's large online gaming population and could be the catalyst everyone was waiting for to make online bingo go mobile. The buzz in the industry about online bingo sites coming to mobile phones has been around for a couple of years now, with the potential market only growing steadily. Although some non-gambling free bingo applications are available for smartphones, so far no major online bingo company like Meeca Bingo or Bet365 Bingo has made the big step. The removal of Apple’s restrictions on gambling and bingo content and the opening of the iPhone users market to the industry could very well be the step everyone was looking for to dive in this highly profitable market, which now includes the iPad as well as the iPhone.
Based in London, Betfair is currently the largest Internet betting exchange in the world. Betfair does not currently offer bingo, but they do have online slots.

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