Gambling is a popular activity that has been around for centuries. The most famous places for gambling are Las Vegas and parts of Australia. Why is this?

To begin with, Las Vegas has been one of the first places in the world to introduce the world to the slot machine. This attracted some of the biggest players on the globe to Las Vegas as they wanted to be one of the first players to test out this new gambling device.

Ever since Las Vegas has been the capital of the world for gambling and seems to continue to have the first and best gambling devices on the market. Not to mention the number of luxury players have to enjoy as they venture into a new world of gambling.

The word of the slot machine spread quickly from Las Vegas to Australia where the Aussies decided to implement this new exciting device. Because of the pokies machine, Australia has managed to make an empire entirely out of casinos.

What an amazing invention the slot machine has been for not only many countries but also for the players. It has brought so much happiness and excitement into players lives which seems to get popular by the minute.

Let us take a look at some of the gambling statistics in the United States and in Australia.

AUSTRALIAN GAMBLING STATISTICS

Aussies have taken joy in gambling for many, many years. A little bit 80% of Australians gamble in some form which makes the Aussies the largest group of people to gamble. In the latest research, it has shown that Australians wager and lose more than any other country. But with a large number of gamblers also comes a large number of problem gamblers.

Unfortunately, gambling has become a significant health issue for thousands of Australians. Around 1.5 % of the players which are roughly 160,000 Aussies have some sort of health issue associated with gambling.

As fun and exciting gambling are, it can cause some serious economical, emotional and physical problems for the vulnerable gambler. This is why the regulators player such an important role to the players as they protect their rights and health.

In most recent years gamblers have lost around $24 billion AUD to gambling itself, that’s more per capita than any other nation in the world. Where the majority of losses goes to wagering and losing on the pokies machines.

Australia is number six on the list with the most slot machines in the world. They’ve got an estimated 197,122 pokies machines which means they take 2.5% of the worlds licensed slot machines.

New South Wales takes about 95,800 of the slot machines which means they’re only beaten by Nevada in the US that operate 181,109 slot machines alone in their state.

As many as 600,000 Aussies (4%) gamble on pokies online or offline. Out of these 600,000 regular slots, players around 95,000 (15%) are addicted gamblers. 

In 2018 the Central Coast made $105,317,922.40 AUD from pokies only where they took home a net profit of $24,714,552.

New South Wales may have the highest amount of slot machines in Australia but they also have the highest amount of problem gamblers especially young men between the ages of 18-24.

The majority of Australian gamblers (96%) gamble for the need of money. Yes, of course, most of us do gamble in the hope of winning a jackpot or some sort of large sum of money so that comes as no surprise. But when we say they gambler for the need of money it’s because they’re turning to gamble because they need more money in their life.

The younger gamblers tend to gamble because they hope to win possessions such as mobile phones or other tech devices.

The statistics also found that New South Wales had the highest online gamblers in Australia. 

US GAMBLING STATISTICS

After doing some extensive research we found through The American Gaming Association (AGA) that the US gambling market is worth $261 billion USD and to this day supports more than 1.8 billion jobs over 40 states in America.

Saying that it has been and it still is a difficult road for gambling in the US. There are any confusions that are yet to be cleared when it comes to online gambling in the US. With so many anti-gambling laws being put into place since America’s great depression, gambling has been regulated under a magnifying glass.

Believe it or not, but many of the US regulations have not been updated since the 1960s. However, laws have started shifting and to this day, there’s some gambling leeway in some few states.

With sports betting becoming legal in certain states, the US has had a revenue increase of $160 billion USD last year which will increase to around $200 billion USD this year.

It’s clear to say, Americans love gambling. Nevada had a revenue increase of $118.46 million USD through poker playing gamblers.

The online gambling market in the US has proven to become huge and gained $247.5 million USD and continues to grow. They’ve made a 21% increase in revenue since 2016 when New Jersey’s iGaming niche became huge.

Gambling on sportsbooks recently became legal and we’re glad it did as the US are huge fans of sports. Nevada bookmakers gained $248 million USD from sports bettors alone which became a record for them.

William Hill is one of their biggest export websites that Americans seem to love to go for betting on sports. With so many sports fans and big sporting events such as NFL, NHL, NBA, Super Bowl, and MLB the sportsbooks seem to take the lead in generating profit for the US.

In only 6 months alone after it became legal to bet on sportsbooks, sports gambling jurisdictions took home $129.6 million from the activity of a huge amount of online bettors.

Nevada managed to generate a little bit over $301 million USD due to having better media coverage across the US. Overall, the sports betting industry managed to get a large sum of $430.6 million USD in revenue.

There’s still confusion that remains in the US where many Americans are still wondering if gambling is legal in the US? To answer that question it’s yes and no. It mostly comes down to each individual state.

Gambling is not legal everywhere in the US, so keep that in mind, to begin with. This is because the United States is a constitutional republic with a federated system of government where the laws need to be balanced between the states and the settled federal gaming jurisdictions.

Hence why it can be confusing for many to answer that question fully. You can basically as an American find states where gambling is legal such as Nevada and Las Vegas for example.

Utah and Hawaii are 100% banned from any form of gambling.

These are the most popular form of gambling in the US:

• Card rooms: These rooms are popular inside or outside of casinos. Many of these card rooms exist on the Las Vegas strip and in Atlantic City where they have their special kind of poker rooms.

• Sportsbooks: Las Vegas holds the majority of the legal and regulated gambling devices and legal sportsbooks are one of those devices that can be found in a land-based casino in Vegas. After the Supreme Court was struck down by the PASPA, it became legal in 46 states in the US to gamble on sportsbooks if their own state would allow it.

• Online casinos: The UIGEA banned all forms of online gambling in the US until 2011 when it got reversed. Now states such as New Jersey, Delaware, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New York, and California have made it legal to gamble on online casinos and poker sites.

• Mobile betting: One of the biggest confusions is that players in the US think that they can gamble on smartphones just because some states have made it legal to gamble online. Most mobile casinos have been banned and are unregulated but now with sportsbook being legal, it may just become implemented in the future to allow mobile betting on iOS and Android devices.