When an entrepreneur considers diving into the iGaming industry while looking into new markets, one of the first questions that pops up is – what is more profitable, online casino games or sports betting? There is an array of factors that impact an operator’s earning potential, such as regional preferences, local regulations, and profit margin. In this article, we are going to compare the advantages of each sphere and discuss which field economically makes the most sense to focus on developing in.
When it comes to overall popularity among the general population, statistics show that people enjoy sports betting the most. According to TGM Research, 35.4% of the world’s population has bet on sports in the last year. As for games of chance, including the lottery, 22.9% of people say they take part in those.
● slots
● poker
● blackjack
● crash games (Aviator game review)
1. Governments generally take a more lenient attitude toward sports betting than to casino gambling.
It almost never happens that a government permits casino gambling but prohibits sports betting. That’s because they view the former as more risky than the latter. Even in countries where sports betting is also outlawed, an exception is usually given for a few – horse racing, boat racing, and similar sports. Japan gives an exception to its traditional gambling game – pachinko. But it is a physical game as well as incorporating pinball elements.
Underground casino gambling, particularly online, is absolutely rampant worldwide, notoriously so among the Chinese. Nevertheless, the major legislative disparity allows more people to elect to bet on sports rather than iGaming.
2. Sports betting is more socially acceptable.
Many people are big sports fans, so for that reason, people look at it as a mere extension of their match-viewing experience, not thinking anything of it. There is more of a social stigma attached to games of chance, although people do enjoy playing some poker and blackjack without betting money.
3. Internet availability
In many rural and underdeveloped regions of the world, there is inconsistent internet with frequent outages. Therefore, gambling in online casinos is practically unfeasible. This is particularly true in Africa, where Internet is extremely problematic. In those regions, people have no choice but to bet on sports instead, which have to be bet on in advance.
Just because sports betting is more widespread, that doesn’t make it more profitable for operators. Everybody has heard the expression before that “the house always wins”. This is certainly true for casinos. That’s because it is quite easy to mathematically program machines to give out a certain RTP to players as well as a certain edge of 3 to 10 percent or more. The same is not the case with sports bets.
Though bookmakers are quite savvy and very good at setting money lines, the over/under, and spreads, many people who decide to bet are more savvy than them and sometimes the sportsbook actually loses money overall to the bettors. Profits are much more slim for these outfits, although most organizations do and should offer both casino games and sports bets.
Market sizes
According to Grand View Research, the United States has the largest sports betting market in the world, worth 13.76 billion in 2023. This is despite the fact that sports betting had been banned in the nation except for Nevada until 2018 when a Supreme Court decision overturned that law. As of now, as many as 39 states have legalized sports betting, which account for that total.
In most states, gambling still remains illegal, particularly online gambling, only legal in a mere 7 states. It’s worth bringing up the caveat that there are exceptions to gambling bans in states, such as riverboats in some cases. The biggest exception is Indian reservations who are able to set their own laws and thus maintain a dominant position in the US gambling industry. Nevertheless, the legislative advantage remains in favor of sports betting, and in spite of that, Statistica reports that the casino industry in USA is 66.65 billion USD per year.
Speed and addiction
One of the reasons why people spend so much on casino gambling is why it is also frequently prohibited by governments – addiction. iGaming poses a bigger threat to cause addiction than sportsbooks. That’s because the process happens much quicker in casino games. They are specially designed for quick exchanges and rapid results, beckoning players to keep giving it another go. Thus, there is a broad spectrum of psychological phenomena causing players to do things like chase losses or keep thinking they’re right on the verge of winning.
One of the main differences with sports events is that they take time. People typically have to wait at least part of a day for an event to occur. In the NFL’s case, people have to wait an entire week or often two weeks until their favorite team actually plays. This inherently slows down the person’s betting. Nevertheless, sports betting absolutely causes addiction as well. They often know a lot about their favorite sport and thus expect to win consistently.
A lot of these people bet on low-odds, high-payout events, which results in excessive risk-taking. Therefore, both may lead people to take it too far. However, casino gambling still takes the cake.
Exploding markets
If an entrepreneur wishes to enter the online gambling market, the best choice is to operate in both fields nevertheless, especially since players will usually churn if they see that a platform isn’t offering everything to cater to all of their favorite pastimes. In any case, it’s profitable if an operator is a professional to provide both services, wherever it is legal. Currently, both markets are experiencing a meteoric rise.
This is for the following main reasons:
● The recent wave of gambling legalizations: since governments have failed to stop people from gambling, there has been a recent trend of legalizations all around the world. They believe that if they legalize it, regulate it heavily, and collect a good amount of taxes from it, they can maximally prevent ills like money laundering, terrorism, and addiction while also taking advantage of the revenue and directing it to be used for positive things.
● Rise of microtransactions: as of late, people have been overjoyed by additional features and side bets in casino games. These also include low entry fees that allow people of all budgets to gamble. On the part of sports betting, the same thing is going on with prop bets, which allow bettors to place bets on minor in-game events, such as who will kick the next corner kick or who the next player to kick a goal will be. These have been big profit generators for operators.
● Growing global connectivity: the smartphone boom that began around 2010 has not yet covered the globe and many people in developing countries continue to acquire their first smartphones, which means that the base for future bettors only continues to grow. Spreading along with that is 5G Internet, which is 100 times faster than its predecessor, operating at 10 Gbps compared to 100 Mbps with 4G. On top of that, cloud gaming has arrived and so even the most basic smartphones will be able to operate the most sophisticated games online.
Also read: STG Energy 2025 Best Free Cloud Mining Platform Low Threshold and High Profit
Copyright © 2025 Coin Gabbar. All Rights Reserved.
