As a huge global business, the gambling industry's market value stood at over $465bn in 2020, with 4.2 billion people said to gamble at least once per year.
While spread over every form of gambling, that figure included the online industry, which generated $66.7bn last year alone.
Here, Sports Mole rounds up all of the key findings from this year's Global Gambling Review, and you can read this article to gain the full insight into the investigation.
Global pattern of gambling
China topped the charts of the countries that gamble the most worldwide, with $36.5bn spent in the year, closely followed by USA with $35.5bn gambled annually.
The next drop was down to the United Kingdom, which produced $22.2bn of gambling according to the latest study, with Japan ($18.6bn) and Republic of Korea ($6.1bn) also heavily noted.
Germany
The first in-depth look into a nation's gambling statistics came in Germany, which has a population totalling 83 million, 51.4 million of which falling in the 18-64 age range that the vast majority of gamblers fall in.
Of this group, figures showed that 79.1% had gambled at least once in their lives, while 48% have gambled in the last 12 years and 20% gamble each week.
Over the course of 2020, the estimated revenue of the industry in Germany was €16.8bn, an average per capita of over €200 in that year.
That amount was spent over an array of gambling platforms, with 24% on poker, 34% on casino entertainment and 38% on sports betting, the majority of which being on football, followed by horse racing, tennis and ice hockey.
The study also uncovered that Germans are some of the world's smartest gamblers on the whole, shown in the €95 average winnings per capita in 2020.
United Kingdom
Between April 2019 and March 2020, the regulated gambling industry in the UK generated a gross gambling yield of £14.2bn, providing an average per capita spend of £213 in that period.
The industry in the UK is carried by approximately 24 million gamblers, 10.5 million of which use online platforms.
Of the population, 45% are said to gamble in some way each month, with 53% of the total spend going on scratch cards and the National Lottery.
Meanwhile, an eye-catching 47% of residents engaged in some form of gambling every week, while on a completely positive note, £1.2bn is donated every year to problem gambling charities every week and £1.6bn generated from the National Lottery was used to fund good causes in 2019.
Finally, the UK reported a particularly high proportion of mobile usage for gambling, with approximately 50% over all sectors being made up by online betting on mobile devices.
USA
The US gambling market hit a new high of approximately $261bn in 2019 according to the US Gambling Association, resulting in a per capita spending of just under $800 when averaged across the population of 328 million.
A key component of the US market is sports betting, which accounted for $900m of revenue in 2019, with the clear leader being football betting, making up for 77% of national sports gambling with the NFL alone accounting for 24%.
Despite basketball and baseball being hugely popular national sports, it is horse racing that takes second spot, with a growing number of millennials expressing a dislike for land-based casinos as online sports betting continues its rise in the United States.
Canda
Canada's gambling industry is a thriving one, with around 20 million residents engaging in some form of betting at least once a year.
As one of the nations with gambling treated as the most culturally acceptable, the market value was estimated at $15bn in 2020, working out to a per capita annual spend of around $750.
Across Canada, the industry generated $2.65bn in revenue last year, with 55% coming from land-based casinos and 45% from online platforms.
Going one step further, the study uncovered that males accounted for 57% of land-based casino gambling with females making up 43%, a remarkably high proportion compared to online gambling, with females only making up 20% of that market.
Although statistics do not agree on every trend, it appears that most gambling occurs in the 18-34 age range, one heavily populated by males with knowledge of new technology.
Australia
In comparison to its counterparts across the world, Australia has a relatively laid-back approach to gambling, with colloquial phrases such as Pokies (slots and machines), Cardies (classic poker machines), Lotto (lottery draw) and Scratchies (scratch cards or related games) summarising the situation of the industry.
In terms of national statistics, Australia tends to vary from the majority of countries across the world, with spending on lottery games by far the biggest generator of revenue nationwide.
1.2 million Australians are said to play 'Pokies' every week, and these are clearly the future of the industry given the current trajectory of the market in Oceania, shown by the fact that Australia, which accounts for only 0.3% of the global population, is home to 18% of the world's slots, amounting to over 200,000 pokies in commercial premises alone, a whopping tally of one per 110 residents.
Australian gamblers have the highest per capita spending of any in the world, registering at AU$800, while they also lose the most of their funds every year too, with the overall win/loss figures averaging out at a AU$1005 loss per person.
