Germany’s Online Gambling Industry to Rake in €3.3 Billion in Revenue by 2024

By the end of 2024, the revenue generated by Germany’s online gambling industry is expected to hit a revenue high of a cool €3.3 billion according to Goldmedia, a prominent market consulting and research company based in Berlin. That number is about €1.1 billion more than the revenue accrued in 2019. 

This projection is hinged on research that was conducted in conjunction with CasinoOnline.de, focusing on a range of gambling verticals such as gaming machines, sports betting, lottery, and casino games. For 2020 on the other hand, Goldmedia forecast a 11.9% drop in revenue mostly due to the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic particularly as a result of the cancellation of major sports events.

Two Figure Growth Expected to Continue Year on Year

From the numbers that the market consulting company crunched for Germany between 2018 and 2019, the online casino vertical experienced a 10.6% increase. Sports betting revenue on the other hand grew by 18.6%. These are the two gambling products that made the biggest contributions to the country’s online casino sector in 2019, to bring in a 10.6% increase in revenue overall, compared to the previous year.

As for the turnover across all gambling verticals and products, there was a 5.5% growth from 2018, after the industry posted €850 million more in 2019, to hit a turnover of more than €16 billion. Overall, gaming machines brought in the most money, accounting for 42% of the total revenue collected from the industry as a whole. 

Additionally, Goldmedia reported that the German gambling revenue is likely to grow by up to 50% in the next four years, even after the dip that the market has already experienced from the COVID-19 crisis. That growth also factors in the fact that online gambling in some states in the country remains a grey area even after controversial laws were okayed earlier in the year. As per The Third State Treaty on Gambling, which is the currently active gaming law, online gambling is only legal within Schleswig-Holstein.

400 German Players Also Gave Their Input in the Survey

On top of the market forecasts, Goldmedia also surveyed 400 active players who participate in online gambling in the country to establish the general patterns of online gamblers. 12% of the respondents confirmed that they play online slots every day while 32% prefer playing the slots every week. 

When it comes to expenditure, 52% of the online players spend less than €50 each month on gambling and 81% of the survey respondents support the implementation of the current deposit limits, among other player protection policies. As for the preferred gaming devices, 65% of the interviewees favored using their smartphones to play online slot games.

However, there was some sad news for licensed online operators in the state as 38% of the online players interviewed indicated that they’d keep playing in offshore online gambling sites that are regulated elsewhere but have no German operating license.

Online gambling operators were also interviewed and the data collected showed that 39% of the customers acquired were from online advertising channels, whereas 28% of them were attained through referrals from friends. Customer acquisitions from social media channels were the lowest, standing at only 9%.