The worldwide revenues from gambling are estimated at $419 billion per year, which is more than the entire gross domestic product of Ireland and New Zealand combined. Interactive gambling has seen a steady growth year upon year as more people become part of this leisure industry.
Whilst critics claim it can lead to higher crime rates and players becoming addicted, gambling is also seen as a way of generating vasts sums of money for struggling economies. As online gambling catches up with the more traditional forms of betting this creates new jobs, which in turn bring in higher amounts of taxation revenues. The UK’s government benefits from online gambling, as nearly a quarter of the population have accounts on UK sites. Compare this to Australia, where it is an offence for any enterprise to offer online gambling services to the Australian people. This has resulted in people using offshore sites, so the economy loses quite a lot of potential revenue.
Our infographic has more information on the ecnomics of online gambling.
