The sports betting industry has seen massive growth in the past couple of decades. There seems to be no stopping this growth in the coming years. It’s been predicted that in 2027, the market for online betting will reach $131.4 billion.
Why has the sports betting market seen such growth all over the world? Well, everything has been in their favour with the arrival of the internet and the improvements in mobile phone technology. The days of being restricted to placing bets at your local bookmaker shop are long gone.
Now the industry finds itself in a position where gamblers can be placing bets on sport 24/7. Being able to bet in-play has changed everything. Gamblers of a certain age would never have imagined they could be betting live on a football game being played in Paraguay in the early hours of the morning.
The improvements in mobile phone technology now allow us to be betting whenever we want and wherever we are. Just having the ability to go online allows the betting to commence and that means an increasing amount being gambled.
2020 was an important year for the global sports betting industry. The market size went through the $200 billion mark Revenue was around the $130 billion mark and it’s believed this will further increase in the years ahead.
It’s estimated that the global figure for sports betting revenue may reach $140.26 billion by 2028. There is expected to be a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10.1% between 2021 and 2028. Since 2015 the CAGR has had a growth rate of over 2% a year. Further growth is anticipated because there are still many areas around the world that haven’t reached anything like their full potential.
That’s despite the Covid-19 pandemic that has affected all of us in the past couple of years. The pandemic may have caused big problems for the land-based bookmakers, but the online sports betting industry came to the rescue of many gambling companies who had a presence on the internet.
One such area has been an unlikely one in a way. You would have expected the USA to be a major player in sports betting. However, that hasn’t been the case until the past few years.
Most US states hadn’t legalized sports betting and that meant most gamblers had to open offshore accounts. Recent years have seen the American sports betting market grow substantially. A US Supreme Court judge ruling in 2018 saw individual states being able to decide if they wanted to legalize sports betting.
Many states have done just that and that’s caused a boom in the US sports betting market. All of which has helped the massive increase in the amounts being gambled on sport. The individual states haven’t suddenly fallen in love with gambling. They see it as a way of earning additional tax revenue at a difficult time economically.
That was the main reason that New York finally legalized mobile sports betting. Millions of dollars have been wagered since legalization took place in January of 2022.
There are other areas where growth is expected. Esports have become increasingly popular in recent years. The amounts bet on esports has risen in the past few years with the pandemic being a contributing factor. Sports betting had a problem when many major sporting leagues were put on hold. Bookmakers realized the potential in esports and began to give increased coverage to it. This is likely to continue in the years to come.
Then there’s Augmented and Virtual Reality. This is the next growth area in gambling with leading gambling companies such as Entain making big investments that they anticipate will lead to major profits being made in the future. Improvements in technology will again lead to increased amounts of revenue just as has happened with the internet and mobile phone technology.
Other areas such as Asia Pacific and Western Europe have also seen growth that is expected to continue. The same is expected to apply to the Middle East, Africa, and South America. As disposable incomes increase, then that is likely to see further increases in the amounts gambled.
While some countries may wish to clamp down on gambling, figures are still expected to be increasing in the future. If players gamble responsibly and companies don’t take advantage of their customers, the industry will be allowed to flourish.
One factor that has seen the impressive figures slightly lower than they should be is the black market. Illegal betting figures are on the increase and those regulating gambling need to be careful not to drive more gamblers in that direction.
Figures are impressive and will continue to move in the right direction. The global sports betting market has a bright future indeed.
