If there’s one obvious trend that defines the global online gambling market, it’s the sector’s sustained and consistent growth.
More specifically, the revenue generated by this marketplace is projected to reach $95.05 billion by the end of 2024, before growing at a CAGR of 8.54% over the subsequent four years.
By 2027, the global market will be worth an estimated $131.90 billion, with newly regulated markets playing a central role in this growth.
Sports betting is set to become an increasingly influential driver of growth too, especially as the football betting market continues to expand exponentially on sites like Netticasino.
But what are the key trends that will shape sports betting in the coming years? Here are my predictions!
Mobile and Online Betting
In recent times, growth in the sports betting vertical has been underpinned by a mobile evolution, which has been observed in global markets.
In Europe alone, more than half (50.5%) of all bets placed in 2021 were executed using a mobile device.
What’s more, this figure is projected to increase to an impressive 61.5% by 2026, as rising smartphone penetration rates and the development of increasingly sophisticated devices continue to shape the marketplace.
In the burgeoning and fast-growing US marketplace, most states are fully legalising and empowering mobile sports betting, usually through dedicated, native apps.
The increased availability and accessibility of sports betting apps will also drive further hikes in mobile gambling while ensuring that this practice remains inherently secure.
Live Betting
The exponential growth of mobile sports wagering has also contributed to the rising demand for in-play betting markets.
In fact, most licensed sports betting sites now offer a huge and innovative range of in-play betting markets and wager types across a large number of sports categories.
Increasingly, we’re seeing such markets combined with comprehensive live-streaming platforms, creating an immersive and instructive in-play betting experience across mobile and desktop platforms.
This is also helping to unlock so-called “micro bets”, which are focused on individual moments in specific games (such as the identity of the next player to receive a booking in a game of football).
As new sports betting sites enter the marketplace and look to build a unique selling point around in-play wagering, there’s also an increase in the use of live, enhanced data analytics to help inform selections.
Instant wagering options are also becoming more prevalent, and this trend is likely to continue indefinitely.
Esports Betting
While the global eSports niche has experienced significant growth for years now, the associated betting market is also on the cusp of a major expansion.
More specifically, the worldwide eSports betting market size was valued at $671.78 million at the end of 2022, while a staggering CAGR of 26.16% has been projected over the course of the next five years.
By 2028, this would create a global market worth $2.709 billion, while providing a huge revenue boost to sports betting sites UK and throughout the world.
As a result, many remote sportsbooks will evolve to offer eSports betting in the coming years, while operators will also establish new markets and wager types across different competitive games.
Blockchain Technology
Like eSports and eSports betting, blockchain is another high growth tech space that will significantly shape and influence the future of sports betting across the globe.
Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that underpins decentralised cryptocurrencies, with first generation tokens, like Bitcoin, having been accepted at selected sportsbooks and casinos for years now.
However, tokens of this type have experienced ongoing scalability issues over the years, negatively impacting transaction speeds and undermining one of the primary advantages of wagering with cryptocurrency.
We are now embracing the third generation of cryptocurrency, with tokens, such as Cardano, designed to tackle existing scalability issues, further minimise transaction fees and create new opportunities to construct transparent blockchain casinos.
Such entities also remain anonymous and inherently secure, and adoption rates at online sportsbooks should increase markedly in the near term.
New Markets Growth
I’ve already spoken about the growth of new markets globally, with both North America and New Zealand also expanding rapidly alongside various Eastern European countries (including Bulgaria and Poland).
These relatively immature markets are poised to grow exponentially over the next five years and beyond, driving global iGaming expansion and potentially increasing the market share of remote betting (when compared to the online casino space).
Of course, this trend is largely being shaped by the development of the US marketplace, where some 34 states and Washington D.C. have legalised some form of remote betting since the Supreme Court struck down the controversial PAPSA legislation (which had previously prohibited sports betting at the federal level) in May 2018.
More states are poised to legalise in-person and mobile sports betting before the end of 2023, while at the time of writing, just six local authorities have created a regulated online casino marketplace.
