Online betting has experienced rapid growth over the last ten years. While predictions are that this will carry on, tougher times are ahead for the sector.
A roar erupts from the crowd. Your favourite team is just about to take the lead, scoring is imminent and you may just win the World Cup. Think of the adrenaline pumping, the sheer elation. Then imagine that at the end of it, you are going home with a profit you made on a bet that will pay for your day watching sport. That is the realization many people across the globe are coming to, as betting begins to enhance spectator sports. Yet its rapid climb to prominence may see slow growth as regulatory hurdles are ahead.
The Rapid Ascension of Online Sports Betting
According to Grand View Research, the sports betting market was estimated to be worth $100.9 billion USD at the last count in 2024, but is predicted to rise to $187.39 billion by 2030. This is an annual growth rate of 11% between 2025 and 2030.
Unsurprisingly, most of this comes from Europe, with around 48% of the global market share. This is where the biggest concentration of regulated markets exists, bringing in taxable revenue streams and rechannelling offshore customers into legitimate channels. Football is the obvious winner, with people across the continent betting on domestic and international tournaments.
Australia's market is outstripping even global growth, and is expected to grow by 13.2% in the run-up to 2030. This would put it at $5,096.8 million a year in revenue. Most of this is coming from online channels, and though Australians love to place a wager, they only account for 2.4% of the global sports betting market. In the Asia Pacific region, China’s sports betting market is expected to be the biggest revenue earner by 2030, with India becoming the fastest growing.
North America, encompassing the US and Canada, is a very fragmented picture. This is because sports betting rules and regulations vary vastly by state or province. This means online sports betting may be legal in one state, but totally banned in another. Yet it is expected to grow by 11.5% in the run-up to 2030, with Canada seeing the highest growth rate.
The World's Surprising Emerging Markets
Emerging markets are popping up in the least expected of places. One locale that has been against the concept of gambling and wagering due to religious beliefs is the Middle East. Yet even this is changing, with websites like Arabianbetting now providing comprehensive guides on where and how to bet online in the region. This breaks operators down by the bonuses they offer, the languages they serve, and customer service.
While the Middle East and Africa account for only 2.8% of global sports revenue, things are changing fast. The UAE recently overhauled its gambling laws with little aplomb. The General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority awarded one license in December, and the first regulated site was up and running by the middle of the month. Only available within the UAE, it lets people place bets on horse racing, football, cricket and provides casino-style gaming.
In many ways, this was inevitable. A new casino resort is being built in Ras Al Khaimah by Wynn Resorts. Scheduled to open in 2027, it has the full backing of the UAE government. Around $835 million has been put into the project, with a further $525 million planned. The Gulf region is expected to have an annual gambling revenue growth of 4.5% in the run-up to 2031, showing its attempts to reposition itself as a global entertainment hub.
The Factors Stimulating International Growth
One of the main reasons for growth has been increased mobile adoption rates and connectivity, especially in emerging markets like Africa and Latin America. A case study can be found in Nigeria. Over the first four months of 2025, its sports betting industry boomed, with over 60 million inhabitants in the country placing bets on a daily basis, with 51.73% of the population placing bets within a year. From this, a gargantuan 92.8% of bets were placed online.
This is in a country where 90% of internet users access the web through a mobile device. Adoption rates for mobile devices in the country are expected to increase by 16.8% up to 2029. As of 2025, over half of Nigerians are now connected to 4G networks. Data consumption has also increased, going from 518,000 terabytes in January 2023 to over 1.23 million terabytes by November 2025.
There are also new sectors in which betting is growing quickly. Esports are one of these, which involve betting on competitive videogaming. Wagers can range from bets on beat 'em ups like Street Fighter to team games like Player Unknown Battlegrounds. There are even professional sports teams that have created their own esports arms to play in digital games of football and rugby. This alone has an estimated growth rate of 13.7% in the run-up to 2034, taking it to a valuation of $54.03 billion per annum alone.
The Positive Impact of Changing Regulatory Frameworks
A further factor has been the increased regulatory frameworks introduced across the globe. Sports betting exists wherever people have internet connectivity. All they have to do is access offshore operators through their devices. Yet this presents a range of problems. For the consumer, it brings dangers from unregulated markets, which may be unfair, have lax security and be outright fraudulent. For the industry, it means that a large amount of revenue becomes unquantifiable. It makes it hard to see how much people in those countries without regulation are spending on gambling.
Many countries are coming around to this realization. They are now either tightening their regulations to prevent offshore betting or creating their own legal frameworks. This is being done in very different ways.
Morocco is one Arab country that has always been more liberal in its approach to gambling, possibly because of its close European associations. In its 2025 finance bill, despite having no online gambling framework of its own, it decided to place a 30% tax on winnings from foreign betting platforms, with a 2% solidarity contribution. This is deducted at the source, such as payment gateways and processing platforms. It has also banned the use of cryptocurrency to close some of the payment loopholes.
Others, such as New Zealand, are following suit, while some are looking to create a more regulated open market like the ones found in the UK and some US states. All this means increased statistical data and understanding, which often accounts for increased figures.
Barriers to the Growth of Sports Betting
The biggest factors hindering growth are also regulatory changes, or a lack of them. There are still many countries and states that have not embraced sports betting and show little sign of doing so. In the United States, there are 11 states that do not allow online sports betting. There are eight that allow in-person betting alone.
When it comes to potential markets, India is a perfect example of a door closing. In 2025, the government quickly implemented a reform, banning all forms of betting, including card games, sports betting and fantasy sports. Known as the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, it came without notice. This threw the sponsorship for the country's national cricket team into question, which had been the Dream 11 brand. As well as citing social issues, the government also noted fraud, money laundering and terrorism financing as the main reasons.
Some countries are now turning back on their previous regulations, believing the proliferation of sports betting to be a danger to the public. In Brazil, Senator Carlos Portinho described the country as a society that is “completely addicted to betting.” He then went on to add that “Football clubs are addicted to betting. Communication companies are addicted to betting, to advertising, to the money they receive from betting.”
He then introduced a bill that would ban betting advertising during sporting events. This would limit advertising to evening time slots, depending on whether they are on television or radio. There would also be a cap on how many betting companies can advertise at any one time. This naturally brought backlash from the country's sports industry, particularly the Serie A, which added that it would “result in the financial collapse of the entire sports ecosystem, especially Brazilian football.”
Is the Sports Betting Market at the Saturation Point?
All of this could be seen as a sign of market saturation, another factor that may slow the growth of the sector. Just look at any site that ranks and reviews online sports betting platforms. There are hundreds. To get around this, many provide bonus offers and matched deposits, but they are all very similar promotions. This market saturation has led some to predict a slowdown by 4.4% across the globe, as user bases shrink and profits diminish.
Growth is still taking place in the sector, and is mainly stemming from markets that are beginning to change and adapt, realising the potential sports betting can bring in taxable revenue. Yet for many places, like the US, it seems that the states that want sports betting already have it. Others seem unlikely to change, and thus, a stagnation has occurred. Any growth is going to come from smaller pockets and countries, instead of huge bases like Europe and the US.
These emerging markets also present a problem in themselves. Many don’t have markets already because gambling is taboo. Sports betting might become legal in Saudi Arabia, but its citizens may not even want it due to their cultural and social beliefs. Thus, just because regulation occurs, it does not mean success is a given. Sports betting is growing, and this will continue, but it is likely that its rapid increase experienced over the past few years is tailing off.
