Rosy future for online casino industry

Leading industry publisher and events organiser iGaming Business (iGB) has revealed the findings of a report it conducted into the growth of the online casino sector showing that the global market could be worth up to $5.8 billion by 2013.

The Global Business Of Online Casinos: Outlook, Forecasts And Analysis found that the sector’s worldwide gross gaming yield is expected to reach $4.7 billion by the conclusion of this year before rising to $5.8 billion by the end of 2012. It is predicted to carry on growing to hit $7.1 billion by the end of 2014, which iGB stated would be an increase of nearly 79 percent over 2009.

“Each online casino operator is looking to participate in a sector becoming more socially acceptable, benefiting from a liberalised regulatory structure in some markets, and enjoying very substantial growth across many key demographics including those that have been hard to reach through other types of gaming or betting such as women,” said Rachael Church-Sanders, author of the report.

“Add to this the growth in social networking, mobile applications and micro-transactions and then multiply that by the growing number of people globally with broadband connections and wireless access and the future certainly looks rosy for online casinos.”

The report is available to pre-order by visiting www.iGamingBusiness.com/content/pre-order-business-online-casinos and not only tracks recent trends and strategies for successful online casino operators but also goes back in time to give a step-by-step history of the industry featuring statistics on starts-ups and expanding enterprises. For example, the study found that online casinos cost an average of $1.5 million to establish but require very few employees compared with their land-based counterparts, which can see an expenditure of $300 million to set up and operate.

“Equally large non-gambling brands such as media owners looking to diversify into other markets or to monetise existing online content may follow the example of the Virgin Group and Sky in the UK and choose to enter the online gaming space through launching their own online casinos,” read a statement from iGB.