Despite hosting the world’s biggest gambling trade show in a week or so, Europe is unlikely to be the region most discussed, watched, or debated in gambling circles this year. Emerging markets will continue to dominate the headlines and the strategic manoeuvrings of many leaders in the industry.
While not all of Europe’s markets can be labelled “mature” — in the way that the UK can be, for example — most of them have entered a phase in which regulatory rigour and compliance overshadow innovation.
While full regulatory harmonisation does not look to be on the cards any time soon, Europe is a collection of markets for which investment in fending off the burdens of maturity, such as strict regulation, controlled advertising, high compliance demands, and increasingly litigation, has become a top priority.
Europe is not completely devoid of dynamism, but it is certainly not the market it was even five years ago, at that point still a beacon of regulatory best practice and a blueprint for the markets that followed it. Those titles are readily being challenged, not just by operators in other jurisdictions, but by rival regulators.
Europe’s gambling market grew by just 5% in 2024, reaching €123.4 billion in gross gaming revenue, according to figures released by the European Gaming and Betting Association in March 2025. The trade body predicted at the time that 2025 would see growth of 3.5% to €127.7 billion.
By contrast, U.S. gambling revenue almost matched Europe’s last year, at an estimated US$121.3 billion, and is still in its relative infancy.
Macau is reported to be recording around $29 billion in annual revenue and in the Philippines, GGR rose by 26% last year to PHP 215 billion (US$3.72 billion).
In Latin America, revenue was projected to reach US$43.95bn in 2025 and to grow 3.5% annually, to hit around US$50.41 billion by 2029. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates is slowly but surely ramping up its regulated gambling industry.
Where does all that leave Europe? Defining changes are still on the landscape for the European market this year; the UK’s remote-gambling duty increasing will undoubtedly reshape that market and have a knock-on effect in wider Europe. Finland is on the brink of remodelling its gambling regime and bidding farewell to one of the region’s last gambling monopolies, while the burden of regulatory compliance looks set to increase still.
Meanwhile, it is important that business leaders at European operators and suppliers don’t lose their hunger to innovate and move forward, albeit at a more gradual pace than they would have a decade ago.
Operating from a place of relative stability in Europe with strong foundations, now is the time for honing, refining, and at times tearing down what has been built to this point. European operators must not stagnate or be deterred by shifting public and political sentiments – all of that should feed into what comes next.
Watching the emerging markets tap into their own zeitgeists should be food for thought on European shores: What does all that information say about the markets closer to home? With an increasingly homogenised global culture, are there lessons to be learnt from what start as regional trends?
Many themes are universal, such as the move towards more social forms of online gambling, the enduring preference for frictionless payments, the desire for more excitement and volatility. Building these features into some of the most highly regulated products in the world is not easy, but taking the blinkers off and looking at the market afresh may help to do so.
Last year’s news of Spribe’s license suspension by the UK Gambling Commission revealed that there may be a level of complacency in mature markets. This is particularly true concerning novel products, the sense that everything is business as usual and that there isn’t perhaps the same attention to detail as there might be in a new market where the unexpected is expected.
The same may prove to be true in the vast array of litigation circling the European market. The region is one major court ruling away from a distinct reshaping of the way it has to operate, throwing uncertainty on a large scale into businesses that may have come to rely on the safety of entering a ‘mature’ phase.
But this is not just a message for operators or suppliers; it affects regulators and legislators too. Having moulded this collection of gambling markets over the past two decades or more, what needs to happen now to keep them viable? How do they remain contemporary and competitive, as technology charges ahead of what most human brains can envisage?
Higher taxes and tighter regulation are unlikely to be the answer, although we should expect them, nonetheless, to be a reality.
As Andrew Tottenham eloquently highlights in his column today, there is no shortage of other options out there when regulated markets fall short of players’ expectations. Keeping the regulated mature markets alive and well over the coming year is going to require not just maintenance, but real nuanced strategy.
