Even though it was quite evident that the events of Black Friday was likely to affect online gambling volumes, those in the online gambling industry were not quite certain by how much it would be affected.
H2Gambling Capital, a reputed consulting firm from Manchester has managed to produce an assessment that shows interested parties that the situation is even worse than what they imagined. They report that the growth of online gambling will slow down to 4.4% this year making it the slowest the online gambling industry has experienced since 1998.
When nobody predicted Black Friday a few months ago, H2 Gambling Capital reported that gross win forecasts for 2011 would be €25.00 billion - a growth of 10.2% on the gross win for 2010. This has now been downgraded to €23.76 billion which is 4.4% growth.
H2 Gambling Capital blamed the impact of Black Friday on the online poker market in the United States as a reason for the slowing down in growth of online gambling. The consulting firm also states that another reason for the slowing down in growth of online gambling is due to the impact that the Japanese earthquake had on the Japanese Racing Association and H2 Gambling Capital has predicted that the Japanese Racing Association’s interactive business will drop approximately 13% year-on-year during this year.