Many academics will deliberately avoid predicting the future. This is not surprising; technology is advancing so quickly today that it has become close to impossible to make such predictions with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Now imagine that predicting the future is part of your job; would you feel confident and up to the task?
A consultancy business in the United States has earned a reputation for being stunningly accurate with their predictions of the future. To make the task a little easier, the company limits their predictions to specific metrics that would be of interest to those working in a single industry. One such example of this is a recent report into the future of the online gambling market between now and 2030.
Online Gambling Returns to North America
In order to make such a prediction with any degree of accuracy, it is necessary to make some predictions regarding which parts of the world may introduce legalized online gambling in the near future. One example of a new market for real money online casino Ontario in Canada, which launched its legal, regulated online gambling market on the 4th of April 2022.
When the United States introduced the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006 it triggered a mass exodus of online gaming components from the North American continent. The UIGEA is still in effect today, but after the Supreme Court’s rejection of the PASPA bill in 2018, many states in the US have begun crafting their own laws to regulate online gambling within their borders.
Why is Online Gambling Growing So Fast?
Online gambling has proven to be one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors during the past 20 years. Millions of people gamble each day on thousands of sites across the world, generating enormous revenues. Numbers did look to be plateauing several years ago, but the growth of mobile gaming applications has seen another enormous wave of demand hitting the industry.
The gambling industry landscape has changed significantly as a result of the growth of online gambling. Huge numbers of existing gamblers are switching some or all of their play to online platforms, whilst new gamblers are much more likely to start by playing online today. This shift in focus from land-based gambling to online gambling is the product of the ease of access and convenience offered by online platforms, which traditional casinos cannot possibly match.
The Data
The data for several of the largest companies involved in the online gambling space was used to create a new report which analyzed data recorded between 2018 and 2022. The report aims to predict market conditions between 2022 and 2030 including demographics, geography, device(s) used, and games played. The overall market size in 2021 was confirmed to be in excess of $65 billion USD, whilst the market forecast for 2030 was predicted at $172 billion USD factoring in an 11.6% annual compound growth target.
Smartphones and mobile devices are by far the fastest-growing device segment in the market, closely followed by tablet users, and some way ahead of traditional PC’s and laptops. Indeed, the traditional PC segment is expected to shrink still further during the reporting period, whilst healthy growth in the mobile segment is expected to continue. Mobile gambling is popular with the younger demographics, whilst sports betting is the most common form of mobile gambling. Mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay are believed to be a large contributing factor to the growth, as the money transfer times when using these methods is much shorter than traditional counterparts.
As the largest mobile betting segment, sports betting is expected to generate the largest online gambling market revenues between now and the end of the decade. It is no co-incidence that sports betting is also the most popular form of gambling in Canada and the United States. Whilst many US states are reluctant to legalize all online gambling activities, particularly casino games, online sports betting is likely to become legal and regulated in the majority of US states before 2030.
The casino segment of the market is extremely popular in other parts of the world, however, and so that looks sure to be the second-best performing area of the market, followed by bingo, poker, and “others”, which includes all other games and segments.
Regional Outlook
Europe has been the leader in the online gambling space for several years, a trend that looks likely to continue between now and the end of the decade. It is possible that North America could close much of the gap during this timeframe, but it is not expected to overtake Europe until at least the following decade.
The Asia-Pacific region is expected to see the largest growth rate between 2022 and 2030, a consequence of the huge populations in China and India. Rapid urbanization, increased availability of high-speed internet, and widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies in online gambling are all expected to contribute further to the fast-paced growth of the Asia-Pacific region.
