If you trace the history of gambling back to the early 1990s, you’ll see that the respective notions of online casinos and remote sports betting were still considered to be relatively fanciful.
Fast-forward 30 years or so, and online gambling is now one of the fastest-growing tech-led sectors in the world. In fact, this industry was worth an incredible $227 billion in 2021, and this number is set to increase further in the near term.
This growth is largely driven by the rise of real money online casinos, while innovations and advancements in technology will unlock further opportunities for growth in the future. In this post, we’ll explore the growth of online casinos and how these entities have evolved throughout the 21st century.
Online Gambling Through the 21st Century
The birth of the online gambling market can be traced back to 1994 when the so-called “Free Trade and Processing Act” was implemented by the Antigua and Barbuda government.
This led to the tiny Caribbean territory becoming the first location to issue rudimentary iGaming licenses, to anyone who wanted to launch their own online casinos.
From here, the iconic development team Microgaming came into being, with this company having proved seminal in creating operation iGaming platforms and creating content that was capable of engaging potential players.
The world’s first online casino was subsequently launched in 1996, creating a marketplace that really began to enjoy exponential growth at the turn of the century.
Both the US and Australia launched their own iGaming markets around this time while introducing regulatory frameworks to help protect consumers and govern growth. Then came the ground-breaking ‘Gaming Act’ of 2005 in the UK, which formally legalized online gambling and gave birth to what is now one of the largest regional markets in the world.
As of 2001, some eight million people had participated in one form of online gambling or another across the globe, while this exponential rate of growth continued on a large scale despite regional legal objections in some US states and other parts of the world.
To this end, the figures from the second half of 2008 suggested that global iGaming revenue peaked at an impressive $21 billion, with Statista data produced eight years later predicting that the market would peak at $45.86 billion and then $56.05 billion by 2018.
In 2021, data from the same source revealed that the global online gambling and betting industry amounted to $61.5 billion. This growth came despite the impact of Covid-19 in 2020, which rendered remote sports betting obsolete for several months and dented the market considerably.
The Reasons for Growth and What the Future Holds for iGaming Across the Globe
There are multiple reasons for this growth, starting with continued technological advancement and the evolution of smartphones.
In developed markets such as the UK and US, it’s estimated that more than 50% of online gamblers now regularly wager using their smartphone or tablet device, increasing accessibility and driving lucrative in-play betting markets.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve also seen a growing number of people embrace remote working, either on a permanent basis from the comfort of their home office or as part of a company’s hybrid working model.
This means that people have far more time and a more flexible work-life balance, making it easier to wager casually either through sports on virtual casino platforms.
These trends will continue to drive exponential iGaming growth throughout the 21st century, with the market expected to expand at an incredible pace between now and 2030.
More specifically, Statista has reported that the iGaming marketplace will reach a staggering $114.4 billion as soon as 2028, expanding by an impressive 86% over the course of just seven years.
Another factor behind this growth is the expansion of the US market, especially in the field of sports betting.
In May 2018, the US Supreme Court took the momentous decision to overturn the 1992 PAPSA legislation, which had historically outlawed sports betting at a federal level.
As a result, each US state was free to legalize sports betting through multiple channels, with more than 30 individual authorities having since capitalized on this to unlock a burgeoning marketplace and considerable tax inflows into their treasuries.
Other states are also considering following suit, creating a huge national marketplace and one that will continue to grow markedly in the years to come. #
With other states also moving to legalize online casino gambling (albeit at a much slower pace), the US will emerge as a key driver of iGaming growth in the coming decade.
