Gaming
Visualized: The Largest Online Gambling Markets
Visualized: The Largest Online Gambling Markets
Gone are the days when gambling enthusiasts had to travel to the nearest casino or find underground gambling dens for a few games of poker or blackjack.
The start of internet gambling or virtual gambling provided enthusiasts with an avenue to spend their time (and money) at the click of a button from anywhere in the world.
Today, these digital casinos have turned into a multibillion-dollar industry in some countries. This graphic by Louis Lugas Wicaksono uses data from the H2 Gambling Capital—as cited by The Guardian—to highlight the countries with the largest regulated online gambling markets.
Biggest Online Gambling Markets in 2021
Gross online gaming revenue globally was estimated to have reached a whopping $102 billion in 2021. Here are the largest markets on a per-country basis.
Rank | Country | Online Gambling Revenue (USD, 2021) |
---|---|---|
1 | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | $12.48 billion |
2 | 🇺🇸 United States | $10.96 billion |
3 | 🇦🇺 Australia | $6.55 billion |
4 | 🇮🇹 Italy | $4.51 billion |
5 | 🇫🇷 France | $3.83 billion |
6 | 🇩🇪 Germany | $3.65 billion |
7 | 🇨🇦 Canada | $2.55 billion |
8 | 🇸🇪 Sweden | $2.10 billion |
9 | 🇪🇸 Spain | $1.60 billion |
10 | 🇬🇷 Greece | $1.30 billion |
Far and away at the top of the rankings, the UK ($12.5B) narrowly surpasses the U.S. ($11B) as the largest online gambling market in the world.
Next up is Australia ($6.5B) in third, comparatively with roughly half of the UK’s gaming spend. Europe features prominently on the top 10 list, including Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, and Greece.
Notably, no countries from Asia, South America, or Africa feature in the top 10. That’s despite some Asian countries having higher economic outputs and GDP per capita metrics than some of the featured European countries.
The True Cost of Gambling Revenue
Online gambling markets rose to new heights of popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people were pushed into isolation with only time and the internet for company. In turn, this raised concerns of gambling addiction and its impacts, including crime.
England alone saw close to 3,000 cases of theft, fraud, and other gambling-related crimes between 2019 and 2020. Governments have now started pushing for policy changes to control these issues before it is too late.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.
Technology
How Do Esports Companies Compare with Sports Teams?
With some esports companies more valuable than traditional sports teams, we visualize esports vs sports in franchise value.

How Do Esports Companies Compare with Sports Teams?
Are esports on the same level as “real” sports? These comparisons range from tricky to subjective, but the monetary value of companies speak for themselves.
The world’s largest esports companies have definitely risen to the occasion. Valued at almost half-a-billion dollars, they’ve started to pass some sports franchises in value.
In the above graphic, we compare Forbes’ valuation of the top 10 esports companies in 2020 against median franchises in the “Big Four” major leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL). Despite competitive gaming’s rapid growth, there’s still a long way left to go.
Esports Impress but NFL Teams Reign Supreme
The world’s top esports companies have grown quickly, and impressively.
As of 2018, there was only one esports company worth more than $300 million in valuation. By 2020, four of the top 10 were valued at more than $300 million.
Esports Company | Games with Franchises | Value (2020) |
---|---|---|
TSM | League of Legends | $410M |
Cloud9 | League of Legends, Overwatch | $350M |
Team Liquid | League of Legends | $310M |
FaZe Clan | Call of Duty | $305M |
100 Thieves | League of Legends, Call of Duty | $190M |
Gen.G | League of Legends, Overwatch, NBA 2K | $185M |
Enthusiast Gaming | Call of Duty, Overwatch | $180M |
G2 Esports | League of Legends | $175M |
NRG Esports | Call of Duty, Overwatch | $155M |
T1 | League of Legends | $150M |
When compared to traditional sports valuations, esports companies have already reached major league hockey status.
TSM, the world’s most valuable esports company in 2020, has a higher valuation than five NHL franchises. In fact, four esports companies were estimated to be more valuable than two NHL franchises, the Florida Panthers and Arizona Coyotes.
But other sports leagues are further away. While the median value of an NHL franchise in 2020 was $520 million, the MLB, NBA, and NFL all saw median values of over $1.6 billion.
Esports vs. Sports Franchises | Lowest Valued Team | Highest Valued Team | Median |
---|---|---|---|
NFL | $2.0B | $5.7B | $3.0B |
NBA | $1.3B | $4.6B | $1.8B |
MLB | $980M | $5.0B | $1.6B |
NHL | $285M | $1.6B | $520M |
Esports (Top 10) | $150M | $410M | $188M |
Differences in Esports vs Sports Structures and Growth
Try as we might to make a clean apples-to-apples comparison between esports and traditional sports teams, there are significant differences in the business models to consider.
For starters, major esports companies own multiple franchises and non-franchise teams across many games. Cloud9 owns both the eponymous Cloud9 League of Legends franchise and the London Spitfire Overwatch franchise, for example, as well as non-franchise teams in Halo, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Fortnite, and other games.
The revenue streams for esports companies are also extremely varied. Companies like TSM, 100 Thieves, FaZe Clan and Enthusiast Gaming made 50% or more of their revenue from outside of esports, having instead expanded into diverse companies with an equal focus on content creation and apps.
But it’s this greater ability to diversify, and the still-increasing size of esports fandom, that continues to grow esports valuations. In fact, TSM’s estimated 2020 revenue of $45 million is less than half of the Arizona Coyotes’ estimated revenue of $95 million, despite a $100+ million valuation difference in favor of TSM.
That’s why the continued maturation of esports is only going to make traditional sports comparisons easier, and closer. Instead of having to pit companies against franchises, direct league-to-league comparisons will be possible, and the differences will likely shrink from billions to millions.
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