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Both gambling and gaming are hot topics and big businesses. Whether it is visiting a physical casino, playing at various websites you can find on comparison sites including PokerStrategy and various others or checking out the best video games on the hottest consoles, there is a lot of interest in the European Union and the UK in both the worlds of gambling and the world of gaming.
UK vs EU Online Gambling Industries
When it comes to land-based casino betting, the UK is one of the largest markets in Europe. With around 120 licenced casinos generating a yield of just over £1 billion a year, it compares well with its neighbours.
The British casino industry employs around 13,000 people, according to a survey from IBISWorld, and saw a 0.9 per cent increase in headcount between 2019 and 2024. Meanwhile, the biggest physical casino market in Europe is in France, which has about 200 different casinos and earns about €3 billion a year.
Casinos have been, broadly speaking, legal in France since 1806, when the Emperor Napoleon permitted their use in spa towns during the water season and in the city of Paris. Although the rules have liberalised since then, French casinos are often found in resort towns and often serve as tourist attractions in and of themselves. Meanwhile, Italy has the highest gambling yield per casino.
The country only has five licensed casinos, fewer than London’s Mayfair district but, between them, they generate a gambling take of around €2 billion.
One area where the UK does have a definite advantage, though, is its online gambling market. Britain was one of the pioneers of online betting, and it is fair to say that it is a booming industry. Figures from 2021 show that the UK had the world’s largest online gambling market, with around £10 billion spent over the course of the year. One reason for this is due to the way gambling is regulated in Britain. Until 2005, approving gambling was a matter for magistrates’ courts, but the act shifted responsibility to local councils.
Perhaps more importantly, though, it allowed for the regulation of online gambling and created the Gambling Commission as an industry watchdog. Betting shops had been a fixture of British high streets since the 1960s, but now it was time for things to move online.
The UK was one of the first countries in the world, and pretty much the first major economy, to have a strong, regulated online gambling market. With comparatively liberal restrictions on betting advertising, there is more awareness of online betting and gambling, meaning that, in turn, more people are likely to use the platforms. And, with strict regulations put in place designed to protect customers, gamblers can feel a lot safer when it comes to their deposits and withdrawals.
This has led to a situation where online gambling in the UK accounts for somewhere in the region of 65% of the country’s gambling revenue, compared to an average of around 40% in the EU. However, Europe’s biggest gamblers are the Italians, with the country’s overall take of gambling revenue coming in at around €20 billion per year.
As far as sports betting goes, the UK has the largest market in Europe, with gaming revenues of close to £12 billion, while the EU’s largest sports betting country, Germany, has a market worth about €7.2 billion.
UK vs EU Gaming Industries
Video games tell a slightly different story, however. What is worth noting here is that, in terms of EU gaming, there are big names spread across the continent. For instance, Poland is home to CD Projekt Red, best known for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077, while the Czech Republic’s Warhorse Studios Kingdom Come: Deliverance has become one of the hottest newer properties. However, the largest gaming industry in Europe is in Germany.
Chimera took over the world of mobile gaming when it launched its Angry Birds series in late 2009, while Berlin-based Yager Development’s Dead Island 2 was a hit, helping the country’s video game industry to be worth about €11 billion. It is worth pointing out that both Germany and France’s game industries are supported by some level of government funding, giving them something of an edge. Overall, the EU’s gaming market is worth about €25 billion.
On the other hand, the United Kingdom also has a gaming heritage to be proud of. Boosted by a thriving video games magazine scene, game studios from across the UK produced some of the best-loved games of the 1980s, with Codemaster’s Dizzy series and Peter Molyneux’s Bullfrog Productions’ Populous fondly remembered.
Moving on, the 1990s saw the formation of Rockstar Games, who changed the industry forever with the iconic, infamous, Grand Theft Auto series before following it up with the Red Dead Redemption games. In total, the UK’s video games market is worth somewhere in the region of £8 billion. It’s also worth noting that the UK is a major exporter of video games, with something like four out of every five British-made games shipped overseas, making the UK gaming industry one of the sector’s success stories.
—TechRound does not recommend or endorse any financial, investment, gambling, trading or other advice, practices, companies or operators. All articles are purely informational—