Online and Mobile Gambling Brings in EUR 25 Billion

The online and mobile casino and sportsbook business has grown again, it has been announced. Data company H2 Gambling Capital has revealed the figures for 2012, and they show a 7.2% increase on revenue from 2011, a long way ahead of land based casinos, which lags at 3.1% growth despite some massive successes in Asia.

Europe has been the main market, with a gambling penetration rate of 12.6% compared to a lowly 4.4% for North America. One of the main reasons for this, however, is American gambling laws that restrict online gambling to just 3 states.

With Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey all set to launch their own online casinos, sportsbooks and poker rooms – indeed, Nevada already has a couple of poker sites up and running – this picture could well change, and it is the US market that could be a big area of growth for the iGaming industry over the next couple of years.

The figures come at a time when the American Gaming Association (AGA) is pushing for federal legislation on American poker rooms. Their message is echoed in a soon to be released film – Runner, Runner – that stars Ben Affleck as the boss of an illicit foreign based poker room that takes advantage of poor student, Justin Timberlake.

Returning to the figures, and if the growth rate of the industry is broken down over regions, Europe accounted for 46% of iGaming’s growth, with Asia taking 28% and North America just 17%. However, with new gambling regulations being rolled out on a state by state basis across the US, the continent is expected to experience rapid growth over the next year.

Interestingly, it is not the online casinos that are experiencing the biggest growth, but sports betting, which – much like Europe – accounted for 46% of the sector’s growth. Meanwhile online casinos accounted for just 17%.