Global online gambling expected to see steady growth and new regulations

Saturday 9th of May 2015

The global market for online gambling is forecast to maintain one-digit growth rates over the next four years and expected to reach a medium to high double-digit number in billions of Euros revenue.

According to German market research firm yStats.com, the growth will be driven by use of mobile devices to gamble along with the recent wave of acquisitions.

Some gambling sites report increasing shares of their total revenues stemming from mobile and gambling search words, which are increasingly originating from phones and tablets, the company says.

“Another important factor is a wave of acquisition deals which has taken place in the past two years; for example, Canada-based Amaya Gaming Group acquiring the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.”

Europe was the largest online gambling market in the world, owing to a large number of countries with established regulations regarding this sector.

“This number is set to increase, as countries like the Netherlands adopt new online gambling regulations, seeking additional tax revenues. Across the UK, France and Spain, betting, in particular sports betting, was the largest segment of the online gambling market in 2014, while in Italy it was outperformed by casino games.”

The performance of the leading global companies in the online gambling and betting segment varied last year, with William Hill and Paddy Power showing growth rates in online net revenues of close to 20 percent, while Betfair showed only moderate growth and Bwin.Party registered a decline in total revenues.