The online gambling industry is one of the most burgeoning industries on the Internet, with the past 2-3 years showing a remarkable upsurge in popularity.  While online gambling is not without its critics and many analysts were quick to predict that online gambling was just a passing fad, quite the opposite is true.  Online gambling is not only here to stay but the online gambling industry is growing in leaps and bounds as well.  Below is a look at some interesting facts about this fast-growing industry.

Online gambling has been in existence for over 10 years.  For an industry, this is still quite young so it comes as no surprise that it’s had its share of problems.  Many online casinos have sprouted up only to close down after bad business practices.  On the other hand, the handful of online gambling sites that were available back in 1994 has since mushroomed into a total of more 3500 today; including online casinos, gambling portals, and poker sites.  This number continues to grow despite recent hard-hitting, anti-online gambling legislation in the US.

In contrast to the US, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean have basically embraced the online gambling industry.  It’s an extremely popular worldwide activity – so popular, in fact, that some experts believe that it’s only a matter of time before the US caves in and follows the UK’s lead of regulating and licensing online casinos, poker rooms, sports betting sites etc. 
It was the Caribbean island of Antigua Barbuda, however, that first unleashed on the world what became the successful online gambling industry of today, when they passed a law that enables online casinos to operate from their homeland (the Free Trade and Processing Zone Act).  Two brothers, Andrew and Mark Rivkin, immediately recognized the opportunity this law presented and quickly formed the well-known online gambling software supplier company, Cryptologic.    Micrograming also got its start that same year.  Both companies, not to mention numerous online casinos and the online gambling industry as a whole, have been going strong ever since.
The online gambling industry, in fact, is quickly on its way to evolving from a multi-million dollar industry into a multi-billion dollar industry.  More and more countries have decided to regulate and license online gambling sites and there are over 2000 gambling sites on the Internet.  With numbers like these it’s hard to argue that online gambling is just a passing fad!

Posted on: January 15, 2007

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