Online Casinos benefit from blackjack
Online gambling grows

Recent report of the online gambling industry reveals an increase in profits, with sectors such as blackjack and sports betting being among the strongest gainers.

Global Betting and Gaming Consultants (GBGC) in its latest report, concluded that the online gambling market in 2010 increased by twelve percent to $29.3 billion dollars. Such an incredible growth rate makes online gambling one of the fastest growing industries in the world. A further look at the numbers reveals that the twelve percent growth amounts to an average monthly gain of 330 million dollars over the last year. A tremendous increase in popularity of online sportbooks accounted for 50% of last year’s growth, as punters began abandoning unreliable bookies and began to place their bets at reliable online sportsbooks. Internet blackjack card games accounted for a very healthy 9% of the growth, a clear indication that the future looks bright for internet blackjack players.

Revenues from bingo were reported to have grown to $1.3 billion in 2010 and are predicted to increase to $2.1 billion by 2013. Leading analysts predict that the online gambling industry will reach at least $41.7 billion, with a few going as high as $47.8 billion, by 2014. As more countries begin to license, regulate and tax online casinos as well as online gamblers, the industry will continue a steady rate of double digit yearly growth for the next foreseeable future. By this year’s end, most EU member states are expected to have a gambling framework in place, to open up the market to foreign online casino operators.

Warwick Bartlett, CEO of GBGC commented – “Internet gambling is clearly growing strong roots and becoming more of a mainstream leisure pursuit and our analysis suggests that, with few exceptions, countries are moving to regulation rather than damnation. This is a healthier engagement with a business certain to continue growing at a rapid rate encouraged by an increasing number of applications developed for mobile phones and the global spread of broadband.” There are currently thousands of poker applications available as well as hundreds of different applications to help players memorize blackjack rules and strategies to help significantly reduce the casino’s edge.

GBGC’s report also criticized the latest British Gambling Prevalence survey, which made unreferenced, scientifically unproven claims, which bordered on science fiction, claiming that millions of pre-teens in Britain are gambling daily online. The Survey reported that over a hundred thousand teenagers, are not doing their homework each night but playing online blackjack using stolen credit card numbers. GBGC called the survey absurd, and advised British politicians, who were on the verge of hysteria after reading the survey, to take a closer look at “gambling with exotic financial instruments, which is done legally on a daily basis, and where the results can be catastrophic, as we have seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.”

Mr. Barlett advised politicians to focus on more serious issues, especially alcohol abuse. According to the latest scientific study, eighteen percent of Brits are full blown alcoholics and another 40% are borderline alcoholics. While alcoholism kills thousands each year there were only three reported cases of deaths indirectly caused by online gambling – all three from heart attacks reportedly caused by the shock of winning large online jackpots. Mr. Bartlett reiterated that – “No one died as a direct result of playing the lottery or placing a bet.”