Having quickly grown to become one of the biggest gaming genres in the world, online gambling platforms are benefitting greatly from the huge mobile gaming platform as forecasts continue to show the potential future for mobile gaming in particular. As it reaches newer audiences and demographics, the number of players is expected to continue growing exponentially too – and for online gambling this means growing from east to west, and many of the biggest markets are expected to see record growth in this same period of time too.
The US is certainly one that has captured the attention of many over the past four years with big reforms and change to laws surrounding iGaming – with over thirty states now having legalized iGaming in one form or another, there’s still a lot of change to come. The big focus has been in enabling online sports betting as online casinos have taken the back seat for the time being, but this is something that could be a gradual progression as demand for online casino service is growing and the economic benefits for making the change have been seen through the successful states too.
For the UK and Europe, there has been a lot of change in regulation, but availability has remained largely the same with services opening on a regular basis – there have been efforts made particularly in the UK to make online services more transparent for players but little in the way of movement across Europe. There are further changes set to come with some aimed at coming in place before the end of the year, but both the UK and European gambling markets have been settled for quite some time and show no signs of moving backwards from this change.
Emerging markets are currently growing across Africa as amongst the biggest opportunities too as mobile usage and online platforms continue to be established – many operators are eyeing this market as a potential future for expansion, but options are still on the smaller scale for now. Further east, continued crackdown on all forms of gaming in China mean that some options are becoming less accessible particularly for younger players with new mandates in place that limit the number of hours players can participate in gaming and despite being illegal in places such as mainland China, there is still a huge market for players looking to take part.
There’s still plenty of opportunity and new tech is opening the doors with the opportunity for the likes of VR and more live casinos to emerge too, and with the forecast growth expected as large as it is, online casinos will likely remain as one of the most popular genres in online gaming.