The global online gambling business is huge. Estimates placed the 2025 market at being worth around $78 billion a year, although those estimates generally don’t include offshore operators and ancillary sectors that are heavily reliant on the online gambling business – more on that later. The market is expected to grow by some 10% to 15% a year over the coming years, most likely reaching $100 billion by 2030 if trends continue.
But how big is that in context? How much of this money is paid back to winners, paying salaries or paid to other sectors for key services? And who are the very richest people who make the most from the business? This article will attempt to answer those questions, and more, in the aim of finding out just how important online gambling is to the global economy.
Global Gambling Revenues Put in Perspective
While the online gambling market is soon to be a $100 billion business by most estimates, revenues are still dwarfed by those of its traditional land-based counterparts. Online gaming is gaining fast, growing much faster than any other slice of the market, but it still has a way to catch up.
Estimates for the total global gambling market vary wildly because:
- Massive amounts of illicit gambling, in China particularly, where data is unclear
- It’s sometimes hard to define what counts as gambling or not, such as social or sweepstakes casinos and prediction markets
- Sports betting, especially, is highly variable year to year
However, many do try to make a best-guess estimate of the situation. The average of many analyst estimates suggests that approximately $500 billion per year is the total for the global gambling market. Of which online accounts for around $78 billion.
To put it in one paragraph, online gambling is bigger than the recorded music business ($29.6 billion annually) but is still smaller than video games ($224 billion). It’s also an order of magnitude smaller than something like online video streaming, where the market is worth some $680 billion annually.
However, when taken in total, gambling can easily be considered among the top global entertainment markets by revenue. Online is increasingly capturing a larger share of this market, and its sheer size indicates there is still ample room to grow.
Player Winnings, Taxes, Employment and Philanthropy are Important Considerations
Given that massive market size, it’s no surprise that online gambling also has a large economic impact outside of direct revenues and profit for operators.
In 2024 it was estimated that around 1.15 million people globally are directly employed by gambling businesses. However, that figure does not include millions more who are employed in related businesses that rely on the gambling sector’s money. For example, the huge (currently declining) tourism trade in the global gambling capital of Las Vegas, or back-end technology development.
As well as employing well over a million people, possibly a lot more, the gambling business also pays out to some winners. Although some might tell you gamblers never win, the business would not be nearly as popular as it is if it never paid out significant sums.
In sports betting, things are even more variable. A good month for a sports betting operator in the US means holding onto 30% of the wagers placed as revenue. Meaning bettors won back 70%, in a good month for the ‘books.
Although no clear figures exist, extrapolating data from various sources, including casino promotional materials around their own jackpots and payouts, lottery press releases, and revenue vs overall gambling spend figures, a rough estimate would say somewhere between three thousand and ten thousand people a year hit million-dollar-plus prizes through gambling.
Which, in the 30 or so years since online gambling became a viable business, would equate to around 300,000 people who have had life-changing level jackpot wins.
The single biggest online slots jackpot winner of all time was a Finnish player who won €17.8 million ($24 million). He hit a jackpot spin on NetEnt’s Mega Fortune slot while playing at local operator PAF Casino in 2013. The record was almost broken in late 2025 when a US player in Michigan hit a $22 million win playing the slot Huff N’ Even More Puff at DraftKings casino.
As well as payouts to winners, regulated gambling taxes are a significant source of income for many national governments around the world. In the UK, betting taxes raised some £3.8 billion in 2025 for example, and the state of New York takes took hundreds of millions a month from sports betting taxes alone.
Ancillary Sectors Also Benefit from Online Gambling Growth
The headline $78 billion figure for the global online gambling sector may be hefty, but it actually doesn’t factor in a lot of other operations that would be far less profitable (if at all) without online gambling.
For example, a 2025 market analysis suggested that the online gambling-adjacent tech market was valued at approximately $20 billion. A figure that would add significantly to the business’s total worth if included.
For example, consider gambling-oriented services and marketing. A top online resource for online casino news and information like Casino.org can bring in millions of visitors daily – making a highly successful business in its own right. Even people not interested in gambling themselves, such as investors, journalists, and analysts, can use expert casino guides to inform themselves about the most popular options among players, as well as other market conditions, such as the latest technology and game trends.
Are gambling-oriented media companies accounted for in analyses of the global gambling market size? It’s hard to say. However, few would deny that they are an important part of the sector, providing useful information as well as employment.
Marketing, financial technology, and reliable infrastructure development for always-on online services require millions of dollars in gambling industry funding each year to ensure the system continues to operate as players are accustomed to.
Running a 24/7 online business processing tens or hundreds of thousands of instant transactions an hour is no mean task, and back-end tech developers are well compensated for their part in the operation. Other firms sell their platforms to casino operators as “white label” solutions that provide almost everything needed for casino owners to get started, from game selection to banking to site design.
The Richest People in Online Gambling – Who are They and How Rich?
The richest individuals who built their fortunes primarily through online gambling operations include:
- Denise Coates, founder of Bet365 (~$11 billion net worth)
- Mark Scheinberg, founder of PokerStars (~$6 billion)
- Teddy Sagi, founder of gambling software developer PlayTech ($7.1 billion)
- Ed Craven, co-founder of crypto casino Stake.com (~$4.5 billion)
- Tony Bloom, founder of sports betting syndicate Starlizard ($1.3 billion)
All four of these individuals come from slightly different niches of the online gambling market. Coates’ bet365 mostly focuses on sports betting. Scheinberg founded what was, for a long time, the world’s largest online poker room. Sagi and Playtech focused on back-end software development for the gambling business. Meanwhile, Craven, by far the youngest and newest entrant on that list, focused on his cryptocurrency-based online casino platform.
Tony Bloom is also an interesting case, as probably the world’s wealthiest professional gambler – money he made actually betting against the house rather than running it. Englishman Bloom started his gambling career as a poker player, before ploughing his modest cash pile from that into an algorithm-powered sports betting syndicate that now turns over hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
This shows the diversity of pathways to the top of the online gambling industry, and that launching a comprehensive online casino is not the only route to financial success in the field.
Interestingly, not one of these gambling billionaires is particularly close to the world’s 100 richest people. In 2026, the minimum net wealth to qualify for the Forbes 100 is around $20 billion.
Professional Gamblers, Poker Players and Influencers are Not Insignificant Economically
As well as people directly and indirectly employed by or involved in running the business, there are others who also make a living from the world of gambling.
It is estimated today that there are some 10,000 professional gamblers in the US alone. Mostly made up of professional sports bettors and poker players.
While big numbers like the $10 million World Series of Poker Main Event make headlines, most professional gamblers never make it anywhere near the financial levels of people who own the house. As noted earlier, Tony Bloom is likely the most successful example, with an estimated $1.6 billion in wealth.
Other high-level poker pros considered among the best of all time, like Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu, have made around $30 million to $100 million directly from playing poker. While very rich, top poker players rarely ever hit the highest heights of global wealth based on playing cards alone.
Gambling influencers can also make lots of money, such as popular streamers who play online slots or blackjack in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers. Although not necessarily full time gamblers, contracts for top celebrities to promote gambling sites on stream can easily go into the tens of millions of dollars.
