Ireland is one of the most gambling nations in Europe, even though it doesn't have fully functioning laws that govern the industry. How big is it exactly? Read on to find out.

Gambling in Ireland

Gambling is prevalent in Ireland. Despite having problems with establishing a new governing body, the industry is striving. According to the latest Irish government report, 65% of people in the country gambled at least once a year. Another 41% of Irish report gambling on a monthly basis.

The latest data on consolidated gambling turnover provided by Jim Power Economics shows that in 2017 it was €5.04bn. The gross gambling revenue in the EU is estimated to be around €70 billion with major gambling countries being the UK, Italy, Germany, and France.

Ireland's share is far from being small compared with other countries.

Gambling online

In comparison with other regions, the EU has one of the biggest online gambling markets. In 2015 the market size was estimated to be €17 billion. The Irish gross gambling turnover reached €2 billion in 2017. That makes the Irish online gambling market share in the EU 11%. The estimated gross gambling yield is €214.

18% of Irish gamble online, the government finds. This is nearly half of all people who gamble. Irish gambles who gamble online also do that at offline locations, as 80% of gamblers report gambling in a betting shop, while over 40% report betting online. The market share of online gambling in the Irish gambling industry is nearly 40%.

Despite a relatively small GGR compared to bigger countries like the UK and France, Irish people gamble significantly more. The GGR per capita in Ireland is €44.50, while the same figure is €34.40 in the UK. This is 20% more than in the UK.

Mobile gambling

The government study shows 51% of people out of those who gamble online gambled from mobile at least once. Over 35% gamble on a mobile platform regularly.

This is facilitated by the fact that smartphones that can run a gambling app are plentiful and the technology allows online casinos, including the best ethereum casinos, to stream games like online slots seamlessly.

Share of losers

The research shows that Irish gamblers are one of the biggest losers in the world. They are only topped by Australians and Singaporeans. The gross gambling loss in the world totalled €400 billion, while the same figure is €2.1 billion for Irish gambling sites. This is only 0.5% of the world gambling losses.

Individual losses, however, are spectacular. Each year, an Irish person loses about €470, which is the third highest figure in the world.

The share of online losses in the world is quite small – no more than 10%.

In Ireland, however, the share of losses due to online gambling is far higher – over 40%. Even the closest countries in the list lose less online. The biggest source of losses in other countries is gambling machines and land-based casinos.

GGR to GDP

Gross gambling revenue in Ireland is quite high in comparison with the country's GDP. The figure is as high 0.97, while in the neighbouring UK it's 0.7.

This might be due to the fact that more Irish gamble and the country's GDP is smaller than that of the UK.

Online gambling in Ireland

The data shows that gambling is a very powerful industry in Ireland, and online gambling is far more prominent than in other countries around the world.