Virgin Games launches mobile gambling platform

Virgin Games has launched a new mobile platform so that its customers can gamble on the go.

The platform, called Virgin Casino Mobile, will host games such as Roulette, Blackjack and Tomb Raider from a range of third party developers.

It is essentially an extension of Virgin’s current gambling site, allowing users to login and pay using their existing membership accounts.

Joshua Morris, commercial director at Virgin Games, said in the next 12 months the company hoped to see 10% of its revenue stem from mobile.

Around 5% of our traffic comes to the site from mobile, but the games weren’t mobile optimised so people have to go and play them on a desktop. The plan is to increase traffic significantly by promoting it to existing customers and using it as a customer acquisition channel."

Morris said the platform is easily scalable now the infrastructure is in place, and even though it has launched with just one gaming partner, more are due to come in Q1 2012.

The launch has been timed to take advantage of a predicted increase in traffic from new mobile users looking for something to do during the Christmas holiday.

Smartphone usage is about 40% of the population at the moment, and with Christmas coming up we feel it's a great time to build our audience.”

Virgin Casino Mobile, which was built by marketing agency Somo, mainly features slots games rather than sports betting.

Morris said the slots market is big enough for Virgin to get its teeth into at the moment and confirmed there were no plans to develop any other areas.