Many sports lovers worldwide are solely immersed in enjoying the fun of gambling. It is a kind of game from which one never gets bored and always tries to play it with a substantial amount to win bumper profits. It not only gives an advantage to betters, but the betting companies also make countless profits every year.
Gambling is like a trend-stopper in Australia that is breaking all gambling records of the world. Almost 80% adult population of Australia is indulged in gambling, playing online through Aus betting companies, and experiencing many risks each day. About 62% of Aussies, mainly consisting of adults, spend on gambling yearly through pokies and 4% of Australian adults play once a week for sure.
Australia Gambling Revenues
- In 2008-09, the gambling revenue in Australia counted over $19 billion.
- By 2015-16, the highest revenue rate (12%) was in Northern Territory, and the lowest (2.5%) was in Western Australia.
- Australian Gambling industry experienced a massive increment in players by 2019 and calculated to make revenue over $225 billion.
HILDA Survey on Gambling
Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) came forward in 2015 and 2018 for detailed research on gambling. The organization aimed to collect data about multiple gamblers in Australia, including their expenditure, and know about risk factors.
Results suggested that in 2018, around 6.5 million Australians, particularly adults, were spending a big part of their money/investment regularly on multiple gambling activities. A large part of the spending was on betting activities like lottery games, pokies, horse races, scratch tickets, and sports betting. The highest spent was mainly on lottery games of around 30% and 27% respectively.
Later on, the lottery games and pokies trend experienced a massive decrease, and an instant increase took place in sports betting, dog or horse races, casino games, etc.
Gambling in Australia during COVID-19 Pandemic:
During 2020 and 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic was on top, the Australian government applied many changes in the gambling industry. It restricted multiple gambling sites and gave orders to close many gambling venues temporarily.
It caused serious effects on gambling industries, and over 66% of Australian players decreased to 53%. The most dominant activities that got affected were poker (-8.1%), horse race betting (-5.8%), lotteries (-8.6%), and raffle tickets (-14%).
The main period in which it took place was from April 2019 to May 2020, when the imposition of strict restrictions due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It started to get normalized by November 2020 and rose to almost 59% when COVID-19 slowed down slightly.
Participation in gambling rose to a massive extent in 2021 when most Australian gamblers started online gambling through various betting sites, and half of them play regularly and reached above 78%. It is how Aussie betting sites gained unmatchable profits and predicted more profits in the upcoming years.
Sportsbet – the Greatest Australian Player
Sportsbet is the largest and fastest-growing betting site in Australia. Owned by Dublin-based Flutter, the company has over 700 employees. Its revenue capture was 30.3% in 2019, increased markedly after its merge with BetEasy in September 2020, and reached 42.6% by 2021 mid.
There was a vast influence on COVID-19 over gamblers’ interests to spend more and more and earn profits online. As lockdowns closed pubs and other gambling venues, people started coming towards opening an online account and didn’t stop their favorite gambling. Sportsbet became the largest Australian betting brand during those days, showing an average increase of 10% of users yearly.
From 2015-to 2020, the online betting platform earned much more profits than its traditional retail outlets, showing a growth of 21.1%. While the outlets considerably marked decrease to over 13.6%. In 2018, the company reported revenue of almost $740million and a profit of approximately 215 million dollars.
Its revenue jumped to almost $2.03 billion as per 2020 reports. In 2020, the gross profit made by Sportsbet recorded over $1.05 billion. By the mid of 2021, the profit grew by over $350million.
The Flutter also owns other betting companies besides Sportsbet including; Poker Stars, Paddy Power, Bet fair, and Fan Duel. What made Sportsbet the largest online bookmaker is the unbeatable success of Paddy Power by its bumper profit margin. By 2015, the brand announced that it had achieved about $117 million profit record.
Australia’s Gambling Losses
Gambling affects individuals’ life in multiple ways by significant losses. As Aussies are crazy over betting repeatedly, and many adults do it regularly, the substantial losses of the world are faced by the country with almost a loss of $25 billion in 2018-19 on legal gambling forms. The loss was approximately $22.6 billion in 2001, adding $2.4 billion by 2002 within 16-17 years. As more players are participating in gambling continuously, the losses are predictable to keep increasing in the forthcoming years.
Final Verdict
It is a fact that Australia is the largest gambling hub, and betters are making extensive money from it. It is an alarming factor for attracting the remaining population to indulge in online betting and earn bumper profits. It should be clear now that as the extensive profits Aussie betting companies make yearly, they can take it so far due to the rapid growth of the gambling industry.