What are the Top 3 iGaming Markets in the World?

Posted by Harry Kane on Saturday, November 21, 2020

While online gambling undoubtedly represents a global marketplace, the size of the worldwide industry is scarcely ever discussed.

However, this fast-growing entity is currently worth an estimated $59 billion, while the market’s cumulative value is expected to peak at an impressive $92.9 billion by the end of 2023.

This market is dominated by three huge entities, with the sectors in the UK, Europe and the US responsible for the majority of the global GGY. We’ll appraise these in further detail below, while asking where the balance of power is likely to lie in the future.

The UK

While the UK may not be home to the largest iGaming market in the world, this entity is definitely one of the most highly regulated known to man.

In this respect, the UK has always set the gold standard in establishing balanced safeguards and regulatory measures, making this market something of a paradise for online gamblers from across the globe.

The overall gambling industry in the UK generated £14.3 billion in the year ending September 2019, with the iGaming niche (including remote betting, casino gameplay and online bingo) accounting for a shade under $5.5 billion of this yield.

This means that the iGaming market now accounts for 38.4% of the overall gambling industry in the UK, and the rapid growth of this space has created a whole new regulatory framework in which brands must operate.

Beyond this, well over 100,000 people are now working in the iGaming market in the UK, establishing this as a significant and strategic contributor to the British economy in more ways than one.

Make no mistake; the robust regulatory framework is crucial to the scale and success of the iGaming market in the UK, creating a scenario where the industry can support a large number of jobs in niches such as marketing, sales and software development.

Similarly, this framework ensures that licensed operators strike the ideal balance between achieving a viable profit and safeguarding potentially vulnerable customers. This is because checks and balances are in place with regards to verification processes, withdrawals and participation in self-exclusion programs, with some increasingly robust measures having been imposed since the UKGC revealed its core strategic objectives through 2021.

Of course, some of these measures have arguably had a detrimental impact on the marketplace, with both the overall and the iGaming GGY declining marginally in the six months between March and September last year.

However, the remote gambling industry remains choc-full of fast-growing verticals, with the UK continuing to blaze a trail for others to follow across the globe.

Europe

While Asia’s brick-and-mortar gambling industry is one of the biggest in the world, it’s neighbouring Europe that dominates in the iGaming space. In fact, Europe is the single biggest online gambling hub in the world, and this trend shows no sign of reversing anytime soon.

This is particularly true in the wealthier, Western nations, although we’ve recently seen huge growth in the iGaming industries associated with Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Aside from the aforementioned UK, Spain and Italy are amongst the leading European marketplaces, with the latter growing by 13.3% to a total £1.73 billion yield in 2019. In the case of Spain, this maturing market has followed the tried-and-tested model of lowering taxes as a way of incentivising growth, creating exponential growth of 28% to £163.3 million in the first quarter of 2018 alone.

The deployment of progressive regulatory measures has also helped to eradicate many of the legal barriers that once surrounded the iGaming market in Germany, with Goldmedia predicting an increase in gross gambling yields from £2.2 billion in 2019 to a whopping £3.3 billion in 2024.

Even Scandinavia represents a rapidly growing marketplace, with Sweden and Denmark currently leading the charge in Northern Europe.

The Swedish market has grown rapidly as the sector has matured and an underlying regulatory framework has been constructed, with this generating a record-breaking £2.3 billion last year (after only really launching fully at the beginning of 2018).

Norway and Finland also boast relatively healthy and generative iGaming markets, and what’s telling is that almost every region of Europe has seen significant growth in online gambling over the course of the last five years or more.

The US

Europe is widely considered to be the world’s fastest-growing iGaming marketplace, with this driving a CAGR of 8.77% for the global industry between now and 2024.

Interestingly, the US marketplace is set to grow at a slightly quicker CAGR during the same period, advancing by 10.28% between now and the year ending 2025.

At the heart of this is the populous nature of the US, with more than 328 million people currently residing in North America. Given this and the ageing nature of the American population, there’s a rising demand for online gambling and increasingly progressive regulatory measures.

More than 70% of the US population now own a smartphone too, creating a clear opportunity for mobile casino gameplay and sports betting to thrive in the near-term.

Of course, the US has numerous obstacles to overcome if it’s to deliver on its immense iGaming potential. Firstly, there remains a strong morale objection to gambling in some of the nation’s Southern states, while the complex process of passing local laws also means that only New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania have legalised online casino gambling in the US (although online poker is a viable vertical in Nevada).

However, we have seen a breakthrough in terms of corporeal and remote sports betting, after the Supreme Court in the US struck down the controversial 1992 PAPSA law back in May 2018.

This piece of legislation had previously prohibited sports betting at a federal level, but the decision to quash this has enabled a number of US states to legalise the practice and create significant local tax revenues.

Of course, this also generates viable jobs and increases the size of the burgeoning iGaming market in the states, while encouraging operators from across the globe to increase their presence in North America.

So, while the US may not yet be the world’s largest iGaming market, it has the potential to supersede Europe and the UK if it continues to adopt a progressive regulatory approach.