With industry analysts predicting that over 2.7 billion Euros will be spent at online gambling sites alone in 2005, a substantial percentage of this looks set to come from an unlikely source.

Online gambling is enjoying an unprecedented high in Ireland.  The Irish Independent recently reported that the Irish are gambling over 70 million Euros per week. The report went onto add: “The figure is set to hit the Euro 100 million mark within the next two years, according to a new study.”

The online gaming industry has experienced phenomenal growth rates over the past years, with analysts predicting that 5.2 billion Euros will be spent on online gambling each year by 2007. This figure represents an annual growth rate of 70 percent. Last year gamblers spent a total of 2.27 billion Euros at online gaming sites.

Paddy Power is one Irish betting firm that has been quick to capitalize upon the nation’s interest in gambling. The bookmaker recorded a figure of 175 million pounds in the first half of this year generated purely from its British online gaming interests.

Another area of strong growth in Ireland is telephone betting, which per individual challenges revenues reported by the United Kingdom. The weekly revenue generated by telephone betting in Britain is 1.5 billion Euros with telephone betting in Ireland not far behind.

All of this just goes to prove that Ireland’s love of gambling easily rivals that of much larger nations and that the positive trend set by Irish gamblers looks set to continue. And of course, all of this is good news for online gambling operators who will be hoping that sports betting and casino games ensure that “Irish eyes are smiling” for years to come.

Posted on: November 20, 2005

Add This Gambling Article To:
Del.icio.us	Digg	Google	Spurl
Furl	Simpy	Y! MyWeb

Back to November 2005's archive
Back to latest News