The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has released the study ‘The Availability of Sports Betting Products: An Economic and Integrity Analysis’.
The study was prepared by H2 Gambling Capital, the leading authority on market data and intelligence in the gaming industry.
The survey analyzes the comparative impact of restrictive and liberal regulation of the sports betting product market on consumer protection, regulatory supervision, taxable revenue, the market and sports integrity.
It is based on data from sports betting operators, alert data from IBIA and market data from H2 itself, and was developed in partnership with: Brazilian Institute of Responsible Gaming, Canadian Gaming Association, Dutch Online Gambling Association and Responsible Wagering Australia.
The central conclusion of the study is that there is a strong correlation between the widespread availability of sports betting products and the proportion of consumers placing bets with onshore regulated sports betting operators (known as the channeling rate), thereby reducing the risk of exposure to sports betting. related fraud in unlicensed markets.
It also highlights specific betting markets that have a disproportionate impact on the onshore market and channeling rate due to their size and popularity. This includes football, which dominates sports betting worldwide, and tennis, which is particularly strong in Europe.
Products such as ‘in-play’, ‘parallel markets’ (e.g. cards and corners) and ‘prop’ bets also have a very significant impact on channelling.
Preventing sports betting is not a prudent attitude
New data challenges the assumption that these markets represent an increased risk of fraud related to match-fixing, while also demonstrating that restricting their availability through regulated onshore operators significantly increases the number of consumers turning to unregulated offshore operators. licensed, more risky.
Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, said: “While politically attractive, this study confirms that betting restrictions are a blunt and counterproductive instrument. They don’t stop betting, they just drive it into the unregulated market, where most problems with sporting integrity arise.”
“The conclusions are clear: if you want to protect consumers and sports from the corrupt, while maximizing tax revenues, it is essential to allow a wide range of sports betting products.”
Study shows popularization of online games
David Henwood, Director at H2, added: “We always turn to data. There is a lot of conjecture that one of the main reasons why customers use offshore betting sites is because they offer a wider range of products than those available onshore.
The results of the study reinforce this point of view. Limiting the choice of onshore betting types – including live – is basically counterproductive.
Instead, the markets most successful in limiting offshore play – evidenced by a pipeline rate of over 90% – are those that have generally opened up their onshore offering to a wider choice of products. There is a lot that can be learned here in terms of best practice regulation.”
The study details the growing global popularity of sports betting. By 2024, global sports betting is predicted to be worth $94 billion in gross winnings and will reach approximately $132 billion by 2028, with over 70% ($93 billion) online.
Just under half (47%) of all online sports bets are predicted to be placed in-play (or in-play) by 2024, rising to 51% by 2028.
It also compares the success of different regulatory approaches to managing this growing demand. Finds that jurisdictions that allow a wide range of betting products, such as Great Britain (97%), have a much higher onshore consumer channeling rate than countries that restrict access to key betting markets, such as Portugal (79%; restricts football and tennis), Australia (75%; bans online gaming) and Germany (60%; restricts football, tennis and live games).
Countries can earn billions from sports betting
In addition to protecting consumers against fraud related to match-fixing, these low onshore channeling rates have been shown to have significant implications for tax revenue and market oversight. For example, the study predicts that:
- Australia would gain billions of additional dollars in incremental tax revenue, and Germany an additional $400 million, over the next five years, if they allowed online betting markets.
- Germany and Portugal are forecast to have a combined offshore loss of around $750 million in taxable income due to restricted access to key football betting markets between 2024-28.
- The Netherlands would see an increase in tax revenue of $118 million over the next five years if it liberalized access to secondary football markets (e.g. cards and corners).
- Portugal would benefit from an additional $122 million in tax revenue over the next five years if it allowed the availability of ITF tennis betting products to align with Italy and Spain.
Conclusion
The study’s findings are important for policymakers to consider as new jurisdictions – notably in North and South America – consider how best to regulate their online sports betting markets.
In Brazil, for example, a regulatory framework with high product availability is expected to generate 34 billion dollars in onshore betting business volume, providing 2.8 billion dollars in GGR, by 2028.
The Ontario experience is also instructive. Having broken away from the Canadian monopoly model and introduced a licensing system in 2022, onshore sports betting pipeline in Ontario is expected to reach 92% by 2024.
In contrast, the rest of Canada combined is predicted to have a rate of about 11% and will lose $2 billion in taxable income between 2024-28.
Main findings
Therefore, the main findings are as follows:
- It assesses the market impact of the availability of key sports betting products based on H2 market data, real operator data and IBIA alert data. IBIA’s monitoring and alerting network covers a global B2C betting turnover of over US$273 billion in 2023, and over US$300 billion if IBIA’s B2B members are included, and utilizes transactional monitoring data based in accounts.
- The main football betting markets (result, handicap and goals) are expected to generate more than US$500 billion in turnover in 2024, with US$370 billion coming from online betting.
- Football side markets, namely cards and corners, are expected to represent $70 billion in turnover and $7 billion in taxable revenue worldwide.
- The introduction of strict product restrictions in Brazil would result in offshore gambling worth US$18 billion per year and more than US$1 billion in lost gambling taxes between 2025-28.
- North America is forecast to reach approximately $5.4 billion in basketball GGR by 2028 and will be supported by strong growth in Europe and Asia, with increases of over 20% and 30% in GGR for 2 $.3 billion and $3.2 billion expected during this period, respectively.
- It is reasonable to assume that prop bets on NBA and NCAA games outside the US may exceed those of any individual US state that may prohibit such activity.
