Online Gambling News

For years we have been seeing exponential growth in the online gambling market, and a recent report released in the UK only confirms this for us yet again. Since 2008 when £1.27 billion was the number, this industry has grown to be generating a pretty impressive £2 billion in 2012. This is an 80% revenue growth. Internationally the business is worth a whopping £30 Billion.

William Hill claims to hold the largest market share in this UK industry. They are certainly one of the “Betting Giants” in the bricks and mortar biz, where online they control approximately a 15% share. This does not seem like a huge percentage in the bigger scheme of things, but the other large betting brands fall behind by 4% and more. This is quite a big deal when we are looking at figures in the Billions of pounds range.

The most dominant revenue spinner in the UK online gambling market place is sports betting, this has been the case for quite some time. It is also the fastest growth sector, with a high percentage of bets being placed from mobile phones – mostly smartphones. Online/mobile sports betting makes up for a total of 44% of the entire online gambling industry in this country! It has grown by a massive 102%, and is estimated alone to be worth £1 billion!!

Because the industry is such a massive revenue spinner, we have previously reported that the UK Government also wants to get in with a chance to win. Although nothing is concrete as yet, they are contemplating changing the law to lower taxes for online operators. We think this is a case of too little – too late. Gibraltar does not – they are resisting changes to UK Gambling Laws, and understandably so. They stand to lose a huge slice of this industry should UK developers, and operators up and leave from their shores.

Gibraltar has tried to ensure that the EU encourages the UK to drop new draft Gambling Tax Legislation. The Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association have even threatened legal proceedings should the new laws ever be enacted. The current UK daft proposals could see significant changes taking place, including removing “White Listing”, as well as requiring all offshore operations to be secondary licensed to offer gaming to residents in the UK.

Gibraltar is an island state that is White Listed which means, they enjoy status as a recognised UK gambling jurisdiction. If White Listing status was removed, taxation was dropped, and or secondary licensing became required, the well-establish Gibraltar online gambling industry might suffer quite significantly.

I have always been a huge fan of Net Entertainment games; this product is used by many UK/European-facing online casinos, and you may even recognise some games names: Jack and The Beanstalk™, Gonzo’s Quest™, Muse: Wild Inspiration™, Demolition Squad™, Zombies™, Blood Suckers™, Hall Of Gods™, Jack Hammer™, Wild Turkey™, Scarface™ and so many more. These games are of such a high quality it is my personal opinion that they outstrip the quality of Microgaming products.

This online gambling development software company has produced excellent results for 2012, and have even been named as the 22nd top employer in Sweden. Yes, they are a Swedish company, listed on the Swedish Stock Exchange, but operate with a remote license out of Malta. They therefore feature together with some of the biggest, and best names in online casinos available to a UK-facing, and European audience.

The operational excellence of this company for the year 2012, only serves to take me back to the days when I used to say "Microgaming had better watch out". The company is growing stronger by the year, and although are not as aggressively producing "mass quantities" of online casino games at the same rate as Microgaming, they produce them with the same if not far better quality.

New (2012) performance records have been set by Net Entertainment, with 12,300,000,000 gaming transactions in total, a 23% increase in revenues (year on year), and since the year 2006 – a median twelve-monthly growth of 32%. They have increased their European market-share to 27%, and the gaming transactions figures we see above, represent an increase of 43%.

NetEnt continues to enter new markets (Italy and Denmark are new), sign more new gaming partners, and has paid out a record breaking Progressive Jackpot Prize amount of over €17 million. In all honesty, what online gambler would not like to play at a site with PJP gaming network potential such as this?

This year, massive online gambling brands have been seen to be offering NetEnt slots, and if they are not, I don’t want to play there. Paddy Power recently joined the fold as did Boyles Sport. They are already found at Unibet, Smart-Live, Bettsson, BetVictor and many, many more. The group says that they are properly geared for opening in newly regulated territories, and it is here they intend to be "in the right place, at the right time".

I still believe that Microgaming has a tough fight on its hands from NetEnt. This brand has signed an agreement with 888 which has its own software development company( what’s that about?) And have also inked a deal with Bonza Gaming for Facebook.

Anyone want to take a bet which developer will come out on top?

Despite the fact that Zynga is essentially a US company, the US online gambling industry has hardly even reached the infancy stage. It is not legal at a Federal level, and only two states have so far made online poker legal, with a vague possibility that casino and other gambling activities, may become legal sometime in the future. Zynga however, had to change or fade into obscurity, so, the obvious choice was to change. They threw their lot in with online gambling giants bwin.party in October 2012, and have now opened UK-facing real money online gaming sites.

The launch was scheduled for yesterday (at the time of writing), and we have taken a look at the screens-shots, things are looking good.

These brand new sites are the first evidence of the bwin.party/Zynga partnerships, comprising of both a poker and an online casino website. These are both real money gaming platforms, aimed at players in the UK, aged over 18years. The casino features a full suite of approximately 180 games including classic table games such as blackjack, roulette, and slots, amongst many more.

At one time the Zynga brand was the leading provider of social gaming services in the world. But with this new and exclusive partnership, it brings together social gaming expertise, with the owners of blue-chip assets. We are expecting this aggressive move into the real gambling space to be a product of very high quality, and apparently so too do shareholders – stock prices for the company have increased by 50% after a shocking drop during 2012.

The company posted massive losses, and a now a new executive pay scheme basically doubles the salaries of various key executives Marc Pincus himself is on a salary of $1 per annum. He has obviously made more money than he will ever need already, and this is a fabulous gesture to prevent a brain drain. Top brass will have the potential to maximize performance bonuses, while he offers his services for just about free of charge.

According to news reports, the poor performance of the firm led to losses of game designer Brian Reynolds, Dan Porter, CEO of Draw Something (OMGPOP), and CFO Dave Wehner. The new salary scheme, plus Pincus’ sacrifice should have the desired effect, while the new real money gambling websites have resulted in a show of confidence in Zynga products. It also helps that they have partnered with bwin.party – the biggest Stock Exchange listed online gambling concern in the world. It looks like this year is getting off to a much better start.

One of the reasons we enjoy playing slots so much, is the massive prizes that can be won. Even though the odds are low, every now and then another online winner land a prize that literally takes our breath away. The latest in a long line-up of these wins has become a history maker.

A 49-year old family man recently went to the "Party" branded website to play some online poker. He was keen to meet the requirements for the Montreal World Poker Tour. While he was there he decided to play the Melon Madness slot in the casino section of the site. Just as well he listened to this "inner-voice" because it cost him a $3 wager to land a staggering prize of $7,525,851. This was the progressive jackpot prize in a five-reel, thirty pay-line video slot that had been growing for quite a long while. Imagine a pop-up appearing on your screen, telling you, you had won this amount of money?

Lady luck has smiled on many such people, and more so since we have been able to play slots games online. In this instance we now have the largest ever recorded online slots prize at Party Casino, which is even better publicity for the Party brand. The nice thing about Melon Madness however, is the game is actually seeded with a progressive jackpot prize of $1,500,000. So anyone could go back right now to play, win, and still become an instant millionaire. They call this the "Big One Colossal Cash Jackpot".

In another huge online windfall; a 31 year old UK man recently landed a €3.1 Million, on the Mega Fortune Slot Jackpot. How do you like them apples? The father of two was wagering £2.50 per spin on Valentine’s Day, and recons this is the best Valentines gift he ever gave to his wife and children – saying it will be a hard one to top. We agree, but this is also not the largest progressive prize paid out by Net Entertainment ‘s Mega Fortune video slot.

Only a short while ago, this company saw one member win, the BIGGEST online slots prize that has EVER been given away. If you think that $7.5 million is a great deal of money, how would you feel about winning €17.8 Million? Yes… this is no exaggeration. On January the 20th 2013, 40-year old man from Helsinki landed this prize. This new world record came close on the heels of €6.9 Million win, and there is one thing that we can be sure of – online slots games are leading the way in making instant millionaires out of many players who are willing enough to buy a ticket in it to win it.

One of the reasons we say that the online gambling industry is a "mainstream" industry, is because of the size of the prize on the bottom line for operators. It is hardly surprising that the UK Government is re-visiting its taxation laws for this industry – during 2012 online gambling was worth more than £2 Billion; it is envisaged that this will grow monumentally. Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise hardly receives a share in this loot, as taxation mores are so tough that most UK operators provide these services to the UK-audience from White Listed, yet distant shores.

£2 Billion is a massive amount of money in an industry which grows, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, year-on-year. Now with mobile gambling being the new zeitgeist, Internet gaming is predicted to grow even more. Some remarkable growth percentages have been seen in this sector of the industry, especially during 2012, as more people get hooked up with a smartphone.

The leading gaming growth sector in the UK is currently real money sports-betting, and especially popular are the “in-play” wagers that can now be made from the convenience of a mobile phone. Just as an example – in the period 2011 to 2012, football betting has seen an increase of 69%. This makes it the second-most lucrative gaming market in the country, just a wee bit behind horse racing.

A recent study which revealed these result, also yielded other rather interesting results too. For example we now know that William Hill is in the lead in terms of market-share, but this does not necessarily mean they have the lions-share of the entire industry. 15% goes to William Hill, while Paddy Power, Betfair, Ladbrokes, and Bet365 each control the same at 11% each. 44% of the market is attributed to "other" operators.

Research is indicating that 29% of users who gamble online are using mobile devices, and smartphones to facilitate this form of entertainment. Searches for online gambling products from smartphones have also grown by 75%. This proves that the spirit of the times is for mobile gambling, and sport-betting is mostly what these users are looking for.

The Island of Jersey has now entered the race to become a licensee state. They are joining into the melee with territories such as the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Malta, Alderney, and one or two other well-liked destinations. With so much attractive competition, the UK Government has a hard task ahead of them if they think they might be able to attract operators back to the fair shores of Pudding Island.