Paying with your phone bill has become increasingly popular for UK gamblers, but to what extent are casinos catering to this niche, and why are Brits drawn to this solution? We sat down once more with industry expert Christoffer Ødegården, head of casino at the popular UK casino affiliate Bojoko.com, to get answers to these and other questions.
Ødegården has previously helped us shed light on how offering a diversity of deposit methods has a clear, positive effect on FTDs for online casinos. In this interview, he will elaborate on the safety, accessibility and value of pay-by-phone bill deposit methods.
Why do so many UK players prefer to pay by mobile?
Christoffer Ødegården: When you play using your phone, there are certain limitations you have to take into account. You may not have all your passwords with you, or you don’t want to type in card details out of fear of exposing them to unsafe networks. Having the right deposit methods available is the key.
Pay by Mobile deposit methods consider this. For example, when you deposit by phone bill, you only need your phone number, which people can rattle off the top of their heads at any time. This is one of the reasons why our page dedicated to casinos that allow players to deposit by phone bill is as popular as it is.
However, what we see is that the majority of UK casinos do not cater to these players.
How can casinos best cater to players who wish to deposit by phone bill?
Christoffer Ødegården: It is straightforward. They just need to incorporate popular pay-by-mobile solutions. Boku and PayForIt are the two most common payment methods, and frankly, it is very strange how casinos just do not add them to their list of deposit methods.
Players are actively searching for casinos that feature these two payment methods, or just pay by mobile casinos in general, as brand names in themselves are not important to all. Most casinos just have a generic Pay by Mobile button, which uses one of these methods.
If you work with us and implement these options, you will be featured on our overview of pay-by-mobile casinos and the pages dedicated to the individual payment methods as well.
How popular are these methods in real, measurable terms?
Christoffer Ødegården: If we combine the various search terms for pay-by-mobile casinos in the UK alone, we are looking at well over 10,000 searches a month. Thousands of Brits are also specifically looking for casinos that offer Boku as a deposit method, again, every single month.
These players land on affiliate sites such as Bojoko to compare the casinos, and as they are actively looking for casinos where they can make a deposit, they often do just that. In other words, these search terms, and our pages for them, have high conversion rates, and casinos that are listed on them are practically guaranteed a noticeable increase in their FTDs.
How safe are phone deposits?
Christoffer Ødegården: Pay by Phone deposits are regulated and safe to use. From a technical standpoint, these are perfectly fine methods and have no issues.
What is worth noting is that these are so-called play-now-pay-later methods. Playing this way can be potentially harmful, as it is easier to lose track of how much you have spent, and with that, there is a potential of playing with money you don’t have. Fortunately, safety measures have been built into them to keep things in check. For example, you can only deposit very limited amounts.
Why are more online casinos not allowing pay by mobile options?
Christoffer Ødegården: Brits have used phones as the main way to gamble online for several years, and all UK online casinos are mobile-first. However, for reasons that are beyond me, they are taking a significant amount of time to get on board with pay by mobile deposit methods.
One excuse that gets a lot of smaller operators off the hook is that their brand is hosted on a platform with built-in payment methods and without the ability to change these payment methods. I don’t want to speculate too much on why the platforms themselves have yet chosen to incorporate them, but it may be that they think the basic options are enough for small casinos.
However, casinos that choose their own payment methods are missing out on valuable potential players without a good reason.
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