An annual in-depth look at global online lottery markets shows that India is gaining ground in mobile gaming for money, with lotteries a notable desi favorite. The industry’s top-ranked companies and markets are all expected to keep growing.
Growth Trend to Continue across Online Lottery Markets
Amidst a year of ongoing COVID-related and economic concerns, only a few industries and markets remained on an upwards trajectory. Online lotteries and related mobile gaming services were among sectors posting strong growth figures, as the annual market research has shown.Assembled by American marketing consultancies, the study places global online and mobile lotteries at $3.1 at the end of 2020. More importantly, the average annual growth has been estimated at 9.5% and expected to continue through 2027. This will bring online mobile lotteries to a $5.8 billion worldwide value, almost double its pre-Covid size.
Desi lottery site Online Lotteries India got a place among the industry’s leading sources for global mobile lottery. The company has seen high praise for its lottery research papers and trusted and genuine information about online lotteries. Other market leaders included 36 competing companies with global outreach, with SevenJackpots also active on the Indian market.
In fact, the Union online lottery scene was cited as a particularly dynamic market, surpassed only by the likes of China where the annual growth is estimated at 12% over the next few years. Other top-ranked countries in the study include the USA, Canada, Japan, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the biggest European markets.
India Confirms Place among the Big Players
India had already gained the status of a leading market for online lotteries according to recent industry studies. The size and importance of desi mobile lotteries had been a major revelation for marketers already a few years back, yet the boom of internet access and mobile services revealed just how big the lottery market in India actually is.The total market size has been estimated between Rs 50,000 and Rs 60,000 per year (upwards of $7 billion). Adding GST to government-run lotteries affected paper ticket sales quite negatively, giving rise to black markets and illegal competition in the process. In the meantime, consumer awareness of online alternatives and mobile lottery options grew. Online lottery retail was largely unaffected by Covid, with a number of related mobile services and apps reporting double-digit annual growth.
Millions of daily lottery purchases went ahead without retail assistance on the ground, studies reveal. Desi users buy both single tickets and syndicated bundles (group purchases). Paper-based sales continued to decrease and industry experts expect the trend to continue.
What Governments Gain from Digitization
Media reports also stress the importance of adding an online dimension to all legal State lotteries. Projections on how big and user-friendly mobile lotteries in India can become include the market becoming more transparent and fair by moving most operations online.With domestic real-money gamers estimated at 150 million by next year (according to EY-India figures), at least half are reported to prefer lotteries as a legal gambling option. Online ticket prices may not rise above Rs 50 for the time being, still resulting in over 15 billion lottery purchases online per year and an astounding Rs 75,000 crore for the exchequer.
More importantly, the move will bring much of the black markets to light, enabling States to tax both companies and player winnings. Mature lottery markets (in the US and Europe) use public revenue from government lotteries for a number of welfare, health and education programs and India should do well to follow suit.
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