Without any doubt, 2021 was a rather unusual, very difficult, and challenging year for all major global industries. With the Covid-19 pandemic negatively influencing the global economy, the global casino gambling industry recorded some negative trends, especially in the field of land-based gambling establishments.

According to the latest reports published by acclaimed agencies that follow the latest industry trends, the global casino gambling industry is expected to grow at an annual rate of 5% in the three years from now.

When it comes to the global online gambling market, it is expected to reach a staggering value of $92,9 billion by 2023. The global iGaming industry was valued at around $59 billion as estimated in December 2021. If it grows at the forecasted annual rate, the value of the global iGaming market will double in the next few years.

The growth of the global online gambling scene is fueled by technological advancements that make iGaming much more convenient than gambling at land-based casinos. Naturally, some other factors significantly contribute to the growth of the iGaming scene.

In recent times, we have witnessed new countries and regions in the world intruding friendlier, more lenient gambling laws and regulations, such as the United States. Global digitalization has also been on the rise, especially in Africa and Asia.

With many regions in the world jumping on the digitalization bandwagon, more international companies feel encouraged to expand their businesses and offer their services to wider audiences. These are all crucial factors that contribute to the tremendous growth of the global online gambling scene.

The Growth of the Global Online Gambling Market in 2021

Unlike many other industries, the iGaming industry was positively influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic and different restrictions. As land-based casinos were forced to temporarily shut down their operations, more players turned to iGaming venues.

To bridge different psychological, social, and financial crises, players engaged in various online gambling activities. According to the latest reports, the Covid-19 pandemic has surged customers’ interest in online gambling activities in all key iGaming markets.

In response to the temporary closures of land-based gambling establishments, many renowned casino operators decided to go digital. We also witnessed many online casinos expanding their offering by adding more instant-win and classic table games into their libraries.

According to most experts, the online sports betting industry will be the fastest-growing iGaming segment, followed by online casinos and other forms of online gambling activities.

In the years to come, the growth of the online gambling market will most likely be fueled by introducing more convenient cashless payment options and more innovative betting models.

To keep their customers engaged, we also expect to see renowned gambling operators offering more interesting tournaments and more rewarding bonuses and promotions. As bonus incentives become bigger and better, customer engagement increases.

The Fastest-Growing iGaming Market – North America

In the second quarter of 2021, the total gambling revenue in the United States surpassed $13,6 billion according to a report released by the American Gaming Association. In the third quarter of 2019, the total gambling revenue in the US gambling market reached over $11,1 billion.

Therefore, the revenue increased by over 22% in the second quarter of 2021, despite the fact the Covid-19 pandemic caused a major recession. When we compare the US online gambling scene with other key iGaming markets, it is quite obvious that the United States is home to the fastest-growing online gambling scene.

This does not come as a surprise considering that online casino and sports betting activities have been legalized in many states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Delaware, New Jersey, West Virginia, Illinois, Colorado, Arizona, and Louisiana.

In other words, the number of licensed online casinos and sports betting sites in the United States increases every day, so is the US iGaming market’s revenue. The increasing liberalization and regularization of online gambling activities in the United States will most certainly fuel the market’s growth and expansion in the months to come.

Key iGaming Markets in 2021

In Europe, the United Kingdom is the ultimate leader when it comes to online casino gambling activities. According to a report by Statist, around 32% of adult Brits engage in online gambling activities on a regular basis.

Moreover, over twenty-five million adult Brits fuel the tremendous growth of the United Kingdom’s gambling scene. Around ten million British gamblers engage in online gambling activities. With this in mind, the UK’s gambling industry is expected to grow at an exponential rate in the next twelve months.

Other key iGaming markets, such as Canada, Australia, and Italy are also expected to grow in the months to come. While their gambling laws and regulations are not as lenient as those in the United Kingdom, the number of online gamblers has been on the rise for quite a while now. The bottom line, the iGaming sector in 2021 suffered no major pitfalls, unlike its land-based counterpart and most other industries.

Contracts for Difference (CFDs) are a popular way of making money online these days. Even though its mechanics seem a bit complicated, and the concept might be somewhat vague for many, they are not something so sophisticated. In this article, we will not explain in detail how CFDs work – we will just assume that you are familiar with the subject matter. If not, there are plenty of online articles that can help you – you can find more details on this website.

Here, we will concentrate on a different subject – what to look for when in need for a good broker that specializes in trading CFDs. This is quite an important subject, because if you don’t make the correct choice, your whole venture might crumble before you know it.

What Defines a Good CFDs Broker?

When choosing a CFDs broker, you need to take into account the accessibility factor – it would be wise to work only with brokers that are situated close to you, for the sake of easier communication. Depending on the city you live in, you might have a choice between a lot of brokers, or just a few. You also need to take into consideration the type of CFDs you plan on trading with.

There are generally two types of brokers – Direct Market Access (DMA) and Market Makers (MM). The former will always charge you for their services, because they require of you to pay the actual spread prices. The latter do not formally ask for a commission, but will eventually require you to pay a bit higher spread prices – after all, they need to make some money off all this. Using MM brokers can be a bit risky, but it is up to you to determine which type suits you best.

Perhaps the most important thing you should look into before choosing a CFDs broker is if they are legit. For the sake of your assets, you need to make sure that the person you choose is regulated by the financial authorities in your country. Also, look into reviews and opinions about the broker in question – the Internet is a big place and you will most likely find unbiased reviews on forums and other websites.

Lastly, the broker you choose must offer a platform that you are comfortable with. Different brokers offer different things – online platforms, desktop programs, and even mobile apps. Determine which one will work best for you, and choose a CFDs broker accordingly.

It Is All Up to You

Trading CFDs is one of the best ways to make money online. With a good broker on your side, your investments are sure to pay off before you know it. When looking for a good online CFDs broker, make sure you take my advice into account – this way you will know that you have picked the right person.

Roulette is undoubtedly one of the games that have become a symbol of gambling and as such, it enjoys a great deal of popularity both at land-based and virtual casinos. While in real life you can see only a couple roulette variations at the same place, online casinos usually offer over 10 different tables, some of which are quite innovative and would be hard to pull off in real life. Such games include Multi-Wheel Roulette, Pinball Roulette and couple other variations which are popular on the Internet. Other games simply have different rules or betting options, something that land-based casinos will be resistant to introduce as their customers are more traditional. Online players, on the other hand, are more adventurous and appreciate diversity, so undoubtedly, the three newest roulette games that popped up at hands down the best real money online roulette sites will come as fresh air to them. Let’s check them out.

Double Ball Roulette

This week, online players witnessed the launch of arguably the most graphically-enhanced virtual roulette game as of yet. On top of with its visual superiority, Double Ball Roulette stands out with the fact that there are two balls thrown into the wheel and, therefore, two winning numbers each round. In fact, you can make a special bet on whether or not the two balls will fall into the same pocket – a bet which pays 35 to 1. You can even make a ‘Double Ball’ bet for a specific number – it pays 1200 to 1! Furthermore, you can make called bets using the racetrack which is located in a separate window that you can go to by clicking the green ‘Neighbours’ button. The bet range is also pretty nice, starting from £0.10 which is perfect for the low rollers, and going up to £1000 for outside bets – an amount that, in proportion to the minimum bet limit, is perfect for applying progressive betting strategies such as Fibonacci’s or Martingale’s.

Key Bet Roulette

This is a game that was launched a couple of months ago by the software provider SG Interactive. What’s unique about it is that there’s an extra slot on the wheel that you can bet on and win a pot of up to x200 times your original bet. The game has a relatively nice betting range which starts from £1 and goes up to £500 for outside bets. The maximum you can bet on the Key Bet sector is £250 which means that you can win a maximum of £50,000 in a round – a sum that is not offered by many roulette games, no matter if you play online or at a land-based casino. Some other important details about the game are that there is only one zero on the wheel and that there’s a racetrack so that you can easily make neighbour bets.

NewAR Roulette

NewAR Roulette is one of the latest titles by the software giant Playtech that was launch roughly 2-3 months ago. What’s different about it is that it allows you to make two mixed bets: Even + Red and Odd + Black bets. These unique betting options pay 3:1 and allow for bets ranging from a minimum of £1 and a maximum of £500. The table maximum for this game is £1000. There’s only one zero and there’s also a racetrack which allows you to easily place neighbour bets and the called bets Tier, Voisins du Zero and Orphelins.

The latest news in the world of mergers and acquisitions is that the UK gambling giant William Hill is reported to have teamed up with NYX Gaming Group in order for them to buy OpenBet. The rumored price put on the betting technology developer is $300 million. This comes right after the UK betting operator has announced its withdrawals from the process to remain the Football Association’s “official betting partner”. The FA tripled the cost of the deal to an estimated £2 million a year.

OpenBet has over 15 years of experience in the field of developing gaming platforms with customers including PMU in France, Danske Spil in Denmark and BCLC in Canada. Currently, the company is owned by Vitruvian Partners. They were bought out back in 2011 for £208 million. There have been reports of Morgan Stanley being appointed to handle the potential sale, though those have not been confirmed by officials from either of the parties involved.

NYX Interactive is Stockholm based. The company was established in 2006 and today offers a number of operating systems for casinos and other online games. The group develops, operates, and manages a rather huge portfolio of online games, including casino, bingo, poker, sports betting, and lottery. In late 2011 they became part of the NYX Gaming Group with their acquisition of one of the leading online games developers – NextGen Gaming (based in Sydney, Australia).

Another titan in the field – Playtech – is expected to enter the game as it is already one of the main players in the industry. This is likely the reason for William Hill to be giving NYX a shoulder – bookies are not fans of the idea of Playtech dominating the market more than it already does. Something that will certainly be more the case if they were to win OpenBet over.

The potential joint venture of William Hill and NYX comes after a recent row of mergers on the British gambling market – Coral & Ladbrokes, Betfair and Paddy Power – it seems to be the going trend. William Hills even made an offer of £744m to buy out competitor 888 Holdings but the offer was rejected by the shareholders. We all know the benefits of mergers and acquisitions, so none of this comes as a surprise.

We have hunted down some expert’s opinions on the topic to shed some light on the overall feeling about the possible acquisition. David Jennings (analyst at Davy Research, Ireland’s leading provider of wealth management, asset management, capital markets and financial advisory services) believes that from investor’s viewpoint, the market cannot be convinced by the strategic benefits of the merger – the numbers still have to be right, guaranteeing steady returns. Something that is not the case as we speak.

Wawrick Bartlett from Global Betting and Gaming Consultants is more concerned with the fate of existing OpenBet members. “The current customers of the OpenBet sports book will have concerns that if ownership fell into a competitor’s hands, they may lose some integrity over customers’ data.”. He is also supporting the point that from financier’s standpoint there are things to be cleared before the deal can potentially go ahead. Anyone with a background in the gambling industry would know though, that things here are not always done for profit. Limiting the reach of Playtech might prove a good enough reason for the bookmaker to proceed with the acquisition regardless of fiscal benefits (or the lack of such).

If you know anything about finance it will be no news to you that gambling is a massive market worldwide. The UK is no exception with one of the fastest-growing segments being online gambling, which generated £1.45 billion for bookmakers in the five months between November 2014 and March 2015.

The big news there is that a new player is about to enter the scene – the well established Australia’s largest bookmaker Tabcorp, part of Tabcorp Holdings is about to team up with The Sun newspaper in an attempt to concur the british online gambling market.

The Sun online bingo is already a favourite destination for many players, with half the betting popularion on the island being regular readers of the tabloid and so loyal to it in their choise of gaming provider as well. The newly born Sun Bets is scheduled to be officially launched in half an year, with the Australian operator covering the software platform and products offered and the British operator – promoting the new site in its existing network.

Now let’s look at some numbers. Tabcorp declared a proffit of USD 240m last year, of which they will put in USD 20m to kickstart the new UK venture. As we mentioned above the UK market seems to be one of the most competitive in the field worldwide, with gambling revenues hitting GBP 3 biillion yearly and over 400 licensed operators.

From an investors point of view, this seems like a pretty safe move for Tabcorp as they won’t have to spend much energy (and so – funds) on establishing a completely new brand. The over 10 million weekly readers of the popular newspaper on the other hand will benefit from the improved betting platform and the tabloid will of course gain a lot from an extra revenue stream.

Some investor brokers however hold doubts. Analysts from Goodboy Stockbrokers have voiced concerns that USD 20m is by far not enough for a sufficient marketing campaign acoss various channels (tv, terrestrial and online). Another weak link can be the fact that in Australia casino style games are banned online, so even with it’s largest bookmaker status, Tabcorp has close to zero expirience in those, and they are a huge part of the UK online gambling market.

An issue can also become the unwillingness of Tabcorp to provide live sport betting online in it’s home market – the logic being that since the introduction of that service in the UK, racing gambling suffered as players shifted to betting online on other popular sports. Both The Sun and Tabcorp are assuring investors that the group is working on developing new range of high class projects and services and is ready to meet the highly critical and competitive new market. Predictions are that the new venture should be profitable within 5 years, so let’s wait and see.

If you have been following the news this year, you must be in the know already that Macau’s casinos have been in trouble for some time now. Following the Chinese government crackdown on corruption and the subsequent flee of high-rollers from the horizon, the revenue plunged 49% last year, hitting an all-time low overall for 2015. Below we will look at how two of the biggest players are dealing with the situation.

Sands China took a gamble last September, when the now 82 years old owner, business magnate Sheldon Adelson appointed a new director of his company. Wilfred Wong, a Beijing insider, is the first in this position of Chinese origin. The markets almost immediately responded positively to the news, with shares of the company rising as much as 2.7 percent to HK $26.30 after the announcement, following four straight days of declines prior to it. Mr. Wong has experience of 15 years in China’s top lawmaking body – the National People’s Congress. Now under the new management, the company is preparing to open a $2.7 billion Parisian Macao resort by September 2016. After the not so promising January (although that is on average a weak month for the country, spent in preparation for the Lunar New Year), Mr. Wong qualified the performance for February as “satisfying”, saying the numbers are getting better and the picture – more optimistic altogether, as the tourists flow from mainland China is growing and starting to compensate for the lost VIP gamblers.

Another industry titan from the area – Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd, reported their last year’s results as well this week. Their fourth-quarter earnings fell 7% compared to the year before. Not an optimum result as well but still – far less than the decline analysts were predicting a few months ago. Here as well, the main reason for their improved records is the shift of focus from high-rollers to smaller stakes players and non-gambling resorts. This year they are planning on developing a resort on land site in Hengqin (an island in the south of of Zhuhai, Guangdong province, just 200 meters from Macau). Galaxy shares have risen 6.5 percent so far this year, making it the only one among all Macau casino stocks that is on the rise and the best performer in the Hang Seng Index – a sure indication that whatever their strategy is, it is working.

One of the chairmans of the company, Chinese billionaire Dr. Lui Che Woo, shared on Teledifusão (a popular Macau local radio station) he is confident the group will see stable growth as a result of its expansion in inland resorts. Finance experts seem to be sharing his view – Aaron Fischer, analyst from CLSA Ltd (Asia’s leading and longest running independent brokerage) comments “Profit improvement for Galaxy can be sustained in 2016 because it has among the best non-gaming products in Macau, especially its hotel and retail offerings,”.

It will be curious to see whether other casino resorts will follow and how will this be affecting the results of the first quarter of 2016.

With the end of 2015, this month many Macau bookmakers have reported their financial results for the year behind. With Chinese authorities’ crackdown on corruption (starting back in late 2014) and the subsequent flee of VIP players, the businesses in the area have suffered losses across the board. This month however seems more promising with results picking up for major players in the industry. This is partly due to the Chinese New Year, celebrated between the 7th and the 13th February. As usually, a lucrative period for all companies relying on customers of Chinese descent. Another major factor in the improvement of the numbers in the gambling industry is their change of focus from high-rollers to smaller stake players and the expansion into not gambling related activities – mostly holiday resorts in the area.

The 82 years old billionaire behind Las Vegas Sands – Sheldon Adelson – has been also seriously hit. His is the biggest casino in Macau and the current situation there is the main reason for the nearly 20% net income drop compared to last year (surpassing by far the predicted by Bloomberg experts decline of 8.5%). The destination historically a safe haven for gambling has turn into somewhat of a nightmare over the past two years.

Let’s focus on the positive though. Despite the losses being on a roll for a 20th straight month this January, Bloomberg’s expert Tim Craighead reported a raise in revenues for February and painted a more optimistic picture for 2016.

His explanations to the more assuring results are similar to ours – the decision to broaden activities towards non-gamblers that many online and offline operators have been toying with lately. The expansion into new markets and customer types has proved to be working. This is evident looking at the operators that seem to be doing better – they are the ones either having new venues, such as Galaxy, or with a focus on web based activities.
With higher interest to online gambling, the number of players on the virtual scene is growing more than ever, making it harder and harder for an average player to find their way around. You can refer to the safecasinos.org.uk overview of trustworthy online casinos or similar destinations, doing the hard work of checking the credibility of a given operator. The detailed information provided (such as this review of a very popular player in the field, to give you an idea safecasinos.org.uk/mrgreen is essential when trying to work your way through the jungle of generous offers and promises of easy wins. As you would know (especially if you come from financial background), if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn’t. But let’s not digress and sum things up.

Even with the drastic losses, Macau remains the world’s largest gambling hub, beating even the Las Vegas Strip (revenues for 2015 despite all troubles still represent 5 times Vegas’ results). What China based operators seem to be learning the hard way is, ironically, becoming more like Vegas – featuring more non-gambling facilities to lure tourists in from around the globe. The $4.1 billion Wynn Palace will now offer air-conditioned cable car rides. The Parisian (a venue of Sands China scheduled to open later on this year) will entertain visitors with a half-size Eiffel Tower. The shift from high end VIPs to more regular players seems to be the way to go, even though Billy Ng, an analyst from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, rightly pointed out that the new customers will make the market more volatile to seasons – as you can imagine high rollers weren’t exactly bothered with pre-planned holidays and weekends.

Hope this article has been of interest, we will continue to monitor the latest developments and bring you hot news from the world of finance, gambling and all around. Stay tuned.