Virtually everyone who, at any point, has taken an interest in online gambling knows that this sphere has been growing since it came into existence. In the year of its birth, it only featured fifteen gambling platforms. Yet, the following one, this number jumped to over two hundred. Today, several thousand interactive gaming hubs populate the World Wide Web, and according to recent research from analysis and consultancy firm Grand View Research, this sector is now on track to swell at a rate of 11.7% per year until 2030, when it should hit a size of $153 billion.
Grand View Research currently puts the annual revenues of this industry at $70.64 billion, representing an increase of $7 billion compared to the 2022 figure. Per this company’s assessment and that of others, the Asia Pacific region should see the most sizable growth in the years to come compared to its baseline, primarily because of the taboo connotation this pastime carries in this region.
Nevertheless, expanding the number of new mobile internet subscribers in the Asia Pacific territory by 2025 will undoubtedly do its part in raising the figure of internet real money gaming fanatics here.
Six states in the US allow interactive gaming and over thirty permit mobile sports betting. 52.6% of the North American online casino market is dominated by two brands, DraftKings and BetMGM, while FanDuel also has a double-digit share of the landscape with 16.1%. In the offshore sphere, the top 5 real money casinos cover 20% of the market, and this refers to platforms that can get accessed by Americans but which run their operations from a foreign country like Curacao or Panama.
What follows in the subheadings here is a quick outline of the top three industry trends that will likely reshape the state of this sector by the end of this decade.
A Focus on Responsible Gambling
The UK is often considered Europe’s top remote gambling market. In 2022, this section of the betting/gaming sector pulled in £4 billion in gross gambling yield, with £2.9 billion being attributed to slot games, according to the UK Gambling Commission’s reported data. That figure was obtained despite the UKGC becoming more aware of the rising problem gambling rates in the UK in the past few years. Since 2020, this regulator has begun implementing various measures to stop the rise of betting addiction in the country. Britain traditionally produces a gross yield of over fourteen billion pounds from all sections of the gambling sphere, so cause for concern has always been present.
In 2022, the UKGC introduced a mandatory self-exclusion system called GamStop, and in 2021 this body removed auto-spin functions from online slots and placed fixed wait times between reel rotations. Ongoing discussions are taking place now regarding implementing source of funds checks for players, which only occur if someone makes a sizable withdrawal request now.
The rules that the UKGC has set have quickly gotten adopted in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, and predictions are that new measures on the responsible gambling front will pop up in the years to come, ones hoping to ensure that people can more easily control their impulses when wagering remotely.
More Skill-Based Games
In 2015 and 2016, Nevada and New Jersey passed regulations to allow skill-based gambling machines on casino floors in their states. These games got rolled out in 2017 and have received mixed reviews and results, with many operators pulling a decent number of them from their gaming areas. However, in the digital sphere, companies try to bring the concepts these products have pioneered to grab new demographics.
Based on a Koeppel Direct survey, most Millennials spend 18 hours daily consuming media. Due to this practice, they have little interest in traditional gambling games. Research shows that gambling was crucial for only 21% of those under 35, and gambling was important for 42% of those over 35. Hence, to grab the attention of young adults, game developers are now looking to expand their arsenals with titles that incorporate a skill element. Though, these only slightly lower the house advantage, with online casinos still having a higher winning probability than their user pool.
Cryptos Set to Dominate
As of early 2023, 420 million people worldwide use cryptos, with the user base growing by 190% globally from 2018 to 2020. Around 46 million of these individuals reside in the US, with India ranking second in this category, with 27 million crypto users.
In online gambling, Bitcoin became a viable payment method a year after the first crypto exchange debuted in 2011, with the first sets of crypto gambling dice sites being Bitcoin ones. Top-end platforms like Bovada accept digital coins for deposits and withdrawals, and many other name brands are also making this switch. By 2030, one would be hard-pressed to find an online casino not allowing coin-based gaming.
