The Global Betting and Gaming Consultants released a report with statistics that were incredibly optimistic in regards to the global online gambling industry. It’s important that we don’t get carried away with our forecasting and that we stick to the facts about the industry. Granted the industry saw some growth last year, but the contention that the global online gambling industry grew by a thumping 12 percent during 2010 to reach a current value of almost $30 billion might be a little too optimistic.
H2 Gambling Capital, a leading supplier of data and market intelligence on the global gambling industry, puts the size of the global online gaming market at about US$21 billion, hitting US$30 billion by 2012.
I also came across an article that discussed how Europe was now leading the world in online gambling. Europe is actually the online gaming world’s handicapped brother, not the industry’s leading light. It simply can’t be, not when 40 % of the global gaming industry is in North America and another 40% is in Asia, according to a recent KPMG report. To give an indication of just how large the Asian market is, when 12bet and 188bet out of Asia obtained Isle of Mann online gaming licenses they instantly pushed Poker Stars down to the third largest licensee on the island, these companies get all their revenue in the lucrative Asian market.
The irony of this is that the large mostly public European gaming companies are battling it out for bread crumbs while the big private companies, many of which are gleaning most of their revenue from Asian markets, are controlling the lucrative global arena.
There are changes up ahead for the industry, but we shouldn’t expect this to change anytime soon.
