When you think of gambling, you typically think of Las Vegas or Macau, yet the gambling industry’s biggest expos are frequently held in London.
Companies in the online gambling business will put up booths and compete to market their latest goods, which range from gaming applications to slot machines to virtual reality games, at this expo.
That’s 3,000 stands in total! Online gaming is currently the fastest-growing industry, and enterprises that adopt new technology swiftly, like any other business, can enjoy even higher profits.
By the way, have you ever heard that Japan is the world’s largest gambling nation? How credible is that?
Japan
So Japan! The game industry has turned its attention to Japan. Japan is the world’s third-largest gambling market, but under strict regulations, annual revenues have been steadily declining since 2003.
Because Japanese people are unable to gamble freely, foreign online casinos are becoming increasingly popular. As a result, there are a lot of casino reviews and comparison sites tailored just for the Japanese, making it more convenient for Japanese to enjoy gambling.
Gaming companies are looking for the “pitfalls” of this regulation and are trying to stay in the market. Pachinko, for example, has an understandable system of not being classified as gambling by giving “special prizes” that can be exchanged for cash at a cash office that is a separate building.
Foreign operators have high hopes for the Japanese market. Also, if pachinko were classified as gambling, it would be number one on the list.
Australia
In general, Australia is not supposed to be a mind-blowing place for gambling.
However! According to H2 Gambling Capital (H2G), the average gambling loss per adult in Australia was $990 last year. This is 40% greater than Singapore’s, and double or more than western countries’.
The most popular games in Australia are the poker machines that you see everywhere at casinos, or the fruit slot machines called “Pokies”. These games are legal in many other countries, but the stakes are usually limited to a moderate level. By contrast, in Australia, where the industry began to be deregulated in the 1980s, you can lose as much as $1,150 an hour. Oh, the horror…
Gambling already has a high penetration rate and high revenue, but with a relatively small population of 2.4 billion, it’s assumed to be a mature market and one that won’t grow much in the future.
USA, Ireland, Finland, Singapore
And what is surprising is that the total loss of gamblers last year reached 110 billion dollars (about 12 trillion yen) in the United States.
The year before last, $150 billion was illegally wagered on sports betting in the United States. Sports betting was only legal in one state.
However, in 2018, [online gambling] was legalized. Although “each state has the right to decide whether to legalize it,” states have been legalizing it one after another, probably because they thought it was better than illegal gambling.
Ireland and Finland, where the online market grew in popularity before the US legalization, have overtaken the US in per capita spending. The U.S. may be due in part to its large population, but…
And Singapore has severely limited the range of legal gambling options, resulting in declining revenues for the industry.
China
In China, various regulations are suppressing the gaming market.
H2G predicted four years ago that China (including Macau and Hong Kong) will overtake the United States as the world’s largest market by 2020, but laws have tightened, with poker applications being blocked in 2018.
Therefore, the Chinese, who are gamblers by nature, play overseas and quite a few people take the risk to gamble at illegal sites or black market casinos.
Loss Per Adult Head
Gambling losses per capita by country divided by the adult population
| Rank | Loss per adult head | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 1st place | Australia | $990 (about 110,000 yen) |
| 2nd place | Singapore | $660 (about 110,000 yen) |
| 3rd place | Ireland | $510 (about 56,000 yen) |
| 4th place | Finland | $460 (about 51,000 yen) |
| 5th place | America | $450 (about 50,000 yen) |
| 6th place | New Zealand | $440 (about 48,000 yen) |
| 7th place | Canada | $420 (about 46,000 yen) |
| 8th place | Norway | $390 (about 43,000 yen) |
| 9th place | Italy | $370 (about 41,000 yen) |
| 10th place | United Kingdom | $320 (about 35,000 yen) |
Australians love to gamble!
These are just the top 10 losses per capita. Not all Australians like to gamble, but many of us do, and it seems that we spend a lot of money.
Now let’s look at the losses by country!
Losses by Country
| Rank | Losses by country | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 1st place | America | $116.9 billion (about 13 trillion yen) |
| 2nd place | China (including Hong Kong and Macau) | $62.4 billion (about 7 trillion yen) |
| 3rd place | Japan | US$24.1 billion (about 2.7 trillion yen) |
| 4th place | Italy | US$19 billion (about 2.1 trillion yen) |
| 5th place | Australia | $18.3 billion (about 2 trillion yen) |
| 6th place | United Kingdom | US$18 billion (about 19.9 trillion yen) |
| 7th place | Canada | US$12.4 billion (about 1.8 trillion yen) |
| 8th place | Germany | US$11.2 billion (about 1.2 trillion yen) |
| 9th place | France | US$10.4 billion (about 1.1 trillion yen) |
| 10th place | Spain | $8.9 billion (about 990 billion yen) |
And well, the ranking changes.
If you look at it this way, Japan’s loss suddenly comes in third place in the ranking. This means that although Japan is not in the top 10 in terms of per capita amount due to its large population, there are a lot of people who like to gamble.
If this is added to the revenue from pachinko, it appears to be true that Japan is the world’s largest gambling nation.
I didn’t know Japanese people like gambling so much.
Compared to pachinko, horse racing, boating, and other forms of gambling, online casinos offer a much better rate of return.
If you are going to gamble, you want to win. I’m sure there are many people, including myself, who don’t agree that pachinko is not classified as gambling, but casinos are.
I feel that I can win many times more by playing slots or table games than by playing pachinko, which has a low rate of return.
Nevertheless, folks, gambling is fun and exciting, and people of all races can get addicted to it. Just make sure you don’t lose yourself playing!