Online Poker

October 18, 2011 — The Editors

Gambling moved onto the Internet as soon as a reliable means of exchanging funds was available on that network. One could call this industry an early adopter of e-commerce. The rules of the game, however, are not always clear and vary from country to country and jurisdiction to jurisdiction which complicates things for a system that spans geographies. Nonetheless, according to those following the market it is a lucrative one.

Today’s market size is an estimated total number of dollars gambled through online poker sites by Americans in 2010.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2010
Market size: 16 billion
Source: Janet Morrissey, “Poker Inc. To Uncle Same: Shut Up and Deal,” The New York Times, October 9, 2011, page B1, available online here.
Original source: PokerScout.com
Posted on October 18, 2011

Posted in E-Commerce, Entertainment, Gambling. No Comments »

Derivatives

September 22, 2011 — The Editors

Congressional attempts to regulate the market for derivatives is bringing this market into the news again. Until the financial crash of 2008 the derivatives market was well below the radar of most people. As the financial crisis unfolded we learned how the market for derivatives had been taken over by financial speculators and financial institutions using them in… innovative ways, turning them into something quite different from what they had been for more than a century.

In a perfect world, derivatives—an agreement between two parties about an exchange in which the price of the item being exchanged is derived from the value of an underlying asset—are used, for example, by a manufacturer to lock in the otherwise widely fluctuating price on a commodity that it buys regularly. When used this way, derivatives are a sort of insurance against volatility, a so called hedge against risk. Things get more complicated when this sort of insurance is purchased by somebody that doesn’t actually own the insured asset and that is where we enter the world of speculation which has become a large part of the derivatives market during the last two decades.

Geographic reference: World
Year: 2010
Market size: $600 Trillion
Source: Aaron M. Kessler, “Carmakers fear restrictions of Wall Street reform,” September 22, 2011, Detroit Free Press, page B1.
Posted on September 22, 2011

Posted in Banking, Gambling, Insurance. No Comments »

Commercial Casinos

September 19, 2011 — The Editors

According to a report put out by the American Gaming Association the commerical casino buiness in the United States, in 2010, employed 340,564 people and paid $7.59 billion in direct gaming taxes. Commercial casinos as a category include Tribal Casinos as well as privately held land-based casinos, river-based casinos and horse racing tracks which are now referred to in the industry as racetrack casinos. While the industry saw year-over-year revenue declines in 2008 and 2009, by 2010 it was recovering.

Today’s market size is the gross gaming revenue earned in the United States by all commercial casinos. By way of comparison it is worth noting that total commercial casino revenues in 2008 equalled only 67.2% of total lottery ticket sales by all government entities ($53.7 billion). Gaming is quite a big business…

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2002, 2007 (peak year) and 2010
Market size: $28.07, $37.52 and $34.60 billion respectively
Source: “U.S. Commerical Casino Revenue Shows Slight Improvement in 2010,” Casino Journal, June 7, 2011, BNP Media, available online here.
Original source: American Gaming Association
Posted on September 19, 2011

Posted in Entertainment, Gambling, Racing. No Comments »

Lottery Ticket Sales

June 29, 2011 — The Editors

The United States does not have an actual national lottery, as many nations do. That is not to say, however, that government sponsored gambling is not a big business in the United States. Here, lotteries are operated at the state level. Total sale of lottery tickets in the United States, in all their many forms—daily numbers, pull tabs, scratch off cards, Keno, Powerball, Mega Millions, etc.—is today’s market size.

In all, 43 states have a lottery and some count 44 by including two Arkansas lotteries, one being the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery which is relatively new, having started in September of 2009. Other lotteries included in the calculation of the total national market are lotteries in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. States with the largest sale of lottery tickets are New York, Massachusetts, Florida, Texas, Georgia and California which together accounted for 42.3% of lottery ticket sales nationally. Worth noting is the fact that this percentage is only slightly higher than these state’s combined population relative to the total U.S. Populaiton. Together, the populations of these six states represented 38.1% of the total U.S. population in 2010.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2010
Market size: $62.85 billion
Source: Patricia A. McQueen, “That magic word—’growth’—is spoken again as most U.S. Lotteries post gains in annual sales,” Casino Journal, October 2010, page 8. The federal government provides a page on its USA.gov web site with links to all the state lottery web site for more details by state. That site is available here.

Posted in Entertainment, Gambling. 1 Comment »

Native American Tribal Casino Market

May 16, 2011 — The Editors

The recession of 2008 and 2009 took its toll on just about every industry, including the gaming industry. According to the source, this industry saw declines in 2009 but those declines were smaller than the declines experienced by commercial gaming nationally. Today’s market size is the size of the gaming industry run by native American tribes throughout the United States in 2009.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2009
Market size: Gaming Facilities 446, Revenues $26.4 billion
Source: Meister, Dr. Alan, Indian Gaming Industry Report, 2011 edition, highlights of which are provided in a press release about the report available online here.
Original Source: Casino City Press

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Commercial Casinos

October 18, 2010 — The Editors

Commercial casinos represent just over a third of the total gambling and gaming industry (37%). Indian casinos—which are counted separately and are not part of the commercial casino market as presented here—are a somewhat smaller portion of the overall gaming business but still represent 28% of that market. The size of the commercial casino industry listed here includes deepwater cruise ships and other water borne casino operations.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2007
Market size: $34.41 Billion, Gross Gambling Revenue
Source: “Gaming Revenue: Current-Year Data,” available online here.
Original Source: Christiansen Capital Advisors LLC

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Gambling & Gaming Business

October 15, 2010 — The Editors

Measuring the market for gambling and gaming is tricky because of the variety of activities covered. Some studies will include aspects of the gaming industry that other studies exclude, an example being state run lotteries. Consequently, one sees citations that vary greatly about the size of the gaming business.

The measurement presented here is from the American Gaming Association, a trade association and lobbying group with offices in Washington, DC. This market size is based on gross gambling revenues for all of the following gaming types: Card Rooms; Commercial Casinos; Charitable Games and Bingo; Indian Casinos; Legal Bookmaking; Lotteries, and Pari-mutuel Wagering.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2007
Market size: $92.27 Billion, Gross Gambling Revenue
Source: “Gaming Revenue: Current-Year Data,” available online here.
Original Source: Christiansen Capital Advisors LLC

Posted in Entertainment, Gambling, Market Size. No Comments »
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