While online gambling in the United States has been controversial, and often illegal, elsewhere it’s been big business for years. For Odobo, they’re looking to make it an even bigger business thanks to an HTML5 development platform that they launched earlier today.

With the release of the new platform, Odobo is also accepting applications for its Game Developer Program from studios and individual producers, giving said applicants the opportunity to get in on the online gambling industry themselves via a series of licensed providers located throughout the world. The game development kit (GDK) provides not only a series of engines, but also a set of random number generators that come complete with accreditation from third-party testing. Odobo has also modified the GDK to come available in several different languages and interact in several different currencies to make sure the target market has just what they need to gamble.

Better still, the quality of the games is on par with the best in Flash gaming, while at the same time being perfect for tablets and smartphones of all types thanks to their HTML5 base. Games completed for Odobo will be made available for casino operators on the Odobo marketplace, described as an app store for gamblers that will launch in 2013.

Ashley Lang, Odobo’s founder and CEO, described the new GDK, saying, "Casino operators invest millions in marketing and are actively seeking new and high-quality content from a wider variety of developers to engage existing players and attract tomorrow’s new ones. We saw a big opportunity to revisit the way content is created, distributed, marketed and monetized to the benefit of all stakeholders."

Lang’s 12 years of senior management experience in the gambling industry shouldn’t be taken lightly, and given the potential returns of such an enterprise–revenue per user in gambling outweigh those of social gaming and casual gaming alike fully 20 to one, and the industry is projected to make $32 billion by just 2015–it’s clear that there’s plenty of opportunity to be had to make the next big gambling frenzy.

That’s a very significant jump in the market, and a major opportunity for game producers to get in on a big industry that has a lot of potential for gain. In a slow economy, a hot market has plenty of appeal, so chances are Odobo’s GDK will be picked up by a lot of potential game designers. While the mood in the United States–still the world’s biggest marketplace–on online gaming is somewhat mixed, the possibility that they may enter the market in more force is still entirely possible thanks to recent, if somewhat confused, rulings from the Department of Justice.

Online gambling may be a big part of the next several years, so getting in on the ground floor may be just what struggling game developers needed.