The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has released a report detailing research on the future of the betting market, including a projection that the global regulated betting market will generate $106bn in gross win from $767bn by 2025.
The report, titled An Optimum Betting Market: A Regulatory, Fiscal and Integrity Assignment, examines 20 jurisdictions representing regulatory guidelines across six continents and can be read in full here.
It is the result of a collaboration between the IBIA and H2 Gambling Capital.
According to the report, the global betting market generated $74.1bn in revenue in 2019 from $490bn in turnover, which represented 16% of all gross gambling win for the year. This market is set to grow exponentially, with the report labelling betting as the fastest growing gambling segment.
It also revealed that betting’s growth rate is double that of the ambling industry as a whole over the next five years, growing at 6.3%. Casino is set to grow at 3.0%, gaming machines to decline by 0.3%, bingo and other games to grow by 4.1% and lotteries to grow by 2.3%. This means the gambling market as a whole will grow by 2.7%.
By 2025, turnover is set to reach $767bn, while revenue is projected at $106bn.
Statistics also outlined the rise in revenue from fully regulated markets. The report revealed onshore licensed betting’s share of the market grew from 57.7% in 2012 to 73.6% in 2020, and predicted that this number will rise further to 76.6% by 2025.
The licensed offshore sector, meanwhile, is set to declined as locally regulated markets continue to become more common. Despite making up 42.3% of the market in 2012, the offshore licensed sector made up 26.4% in 2019 and is set to account for 23.4% in 2025.
In addition, the report evaluated the steady growth of online betting over the last several years. Online betting accounted for more than 45% of all gross betting win in 2019, and is set to rise in the next four years.
In 2020, due partly to the effects of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) on retail betting, online betting is set to overtake land-based for the first time. From there, projections indicate it will not relinquish this advantage.
The report predicted that in 2025 online betting will make up $62bn of all global gross betting win, compared to a projected $45bn from land-based.
“In 2020, H2 calculates that online betting will account for more gross win than land-based for the first time,” the report said. “Although this was primarily due to the enforced closure of retail
betting shops during the pandemic, online is forecast to remain the dominant channel going forwards.”
Within online, mobile betting overtook computer betting for 2019 and is expected to hold this position, growing to more than 60% of the online market.
Breaking down betting revenue into sports and racing, sports is expected to extend its share of the market frther, having first made up a majority of revenue in 2016. In 2019, sports made up $41bn to racing’s $33bn. For 2025, sports is expected to bring in $69bn and racing $38bn.
“Racing (horses/dogs) has traditionally been the main betting product, but sports betting has been growing substantially faster than race betting for a number of years,” the report said.
Football makes up just over half of sports betting revenue, while looking forward, American sports such as basketball are expected to see significant growth in their share of the market.
Asia is by far the largest betting market, bringing in 47.2% of revenue in 2019, compared to 36.3% for Europe and just 6.7% for North America in 2019. However, by 2025, North America’s market share is expected to grow to 12.0% while Asia will decline to 43.2% and Europe 34.3%.
Pre-match betting’s share of the market has declined as in-play became more prominent, but it still makes up a majority of online betting revenue and the report said this will continue to be the case going forward.
