In order to understand the level of development of the gambling market in Ukraine, it is not enough to assess the current tax and licence fee payments or count the number of registered companies. It is also necessary to compare our market with the markets of other more developed countries. And, as one of the latest studies published on the WorldAtlas website shows, such comparisons can lead to some interesting conclusions.
Recently, the WorldAtlas website published a study on the topic of the countries that gamble the most. The first three places in the ranking were taken by the USA, China, and Japan. However, these statistics become much more interesting if you open the ranking of the world's most powerful economies for 2024, where you will see the same countries in the same order. Moreover, out of the top ten "most gambling countries", 8 are in the ranking of the world's 10 largest economies.
This leads to the first important conclusion: the size of the gambling market in developed countries is directly correlated with the level of economic development. The more developed and economically powerful a country is, the more affluent its citizens are and the more money they are willing to spend on their leisure activities, including gambling.
For example, the annual volume of gambling losses in the United States is estimated at $116.9 billion, in China - $62.4 billion, and in Japan - $24.1 billion. And this is only the annual level of losses in the legal gambling segment. If we take into account the illegal segment and the total volume of bets, including winnings, these figures can easily be multiplied by three or even more. For comparison, the total volume of the legal segment of the gambling market in Ukraine in 2024 is estimated at $1 billion.
Another interesting conclusion that emerges from the aforementioned study is that gamblers not only spend and lose more, but the number of gamblers is much higher. Thus, 63% of Americans who took part in the study stated that they gambled in 2023. According to the results of the research we conducted at UGC, the potential number of gamblers in Ukraine ranges from 7-8% of the total population.
However, despite the great popularity of gambling among the population of large economies, no one is talking about the need for a complete ban under the auspices of "fighting ludomania", as some populists in Ukraine are doing. Developed countries are acting more wisely, trying to find a balance between the regulation of the sector and the desire of the population to play. And this is another important conclusion that should be taken into account: market development is not about constant bans and restrictions on the rights of legal companies, but about finding balanced regulatory solutions.
Undoubtedly, the development of the gambling market is influenced by many cultural, historical, political and market factors that determine both player behaviour and the regulatory environment. However, if gambling is a part of the economic system in the world's most powerful economies, perhaps we should learn from them on how to develop the gambling industry? After all, gambling is primarily entertainment, and the propensity of the population to spend money on entertainment is directly related to their overall level of well-being.
And this leads us to another equally important conclusion: at the level of the state and social discourse, gambling should stop being perceived as a threat. Instead, it should be viewed as a full-fledged economic sector that needs to be developed in the same way as agriculture or IT.
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