How the figures are collected and compared

Sources

Every figure comes from an official publisher: a gambling regulator, or the public body that releases its statistics. We do not use estimates, surveys or figures reported second-hand. Each market page names the publisher, and every figure links to the file it was read from. The one figure we work out ourselves is a market’s online total where the regulator gives only products (see calculated totals).

From release to page

1. 1

   Watch

   A watcher checks each publisher’s statistics page every day and downloads any new file.

2. 2

   Parse

   A parser written for that publisher’s format turns the file into one row per figure. A language model never types a number.

3. 3

   Check

   Automatic checks compare totals with their parts and flag values far outside the market’s usual range. A figure that fails is held for an editor.

4. 4

   Publish

   Only figures that pass are published. Market pages, league tables and downloads update together, and a release note drafted from the same rows follows. See how we use AI.

Definitions

GGR

Gross gaming revenue: stakes minus winnings paid to players, before tax. Publishers differ on whether promotional credit is deducted first; the market page names each source.

NGR

Net gaming revenue: GGR after the deductions the publisher lists, usually promotional credit.

Wagers

The total staked by players in the period, also called handle, as the publisher counts it.

Tax

Gambling tax or levy the publisher reports for the period.

Active accounts

Player accounts the publisher counts as active in the period, by its own definition.

New accounts

Player accounts opened in the period.

Payouts

Winnings paid to players in the period.

Bonus deductions

Promotional credit the publisher deducts when it reports revenue.

Licensed share

The share of gambling spend going to licensed operators, as the publisher estimates it.

Online casino share

Online casino GGR as a percentage of all online GGR in the same market and period. Both figures come from the same release.

Year-on-year change

The change from the same period one year earlier: July with July, Q2 with Q2, a fiscal year with the previous fiscal year.

Currencies and qualifiers

Figures stay in the currency the publisher used. We never convert them: exchange rates would change the numbers even when nothing changed in the market, and the conversion date would always be arguable. Growth rates and shares are calculated within one market and one currency.

Some publishers round or qualify their figures. We keep their wording: “about” for approximate values, and “at least”, “at most” or “up to” for bounds. A figure the publisher withholds is shown as “not disclosed”. Approximate values are charted and used in calculations, and the result is marked “about”. Bounds and undisclosed values appear in tables but are never charted, compared or ranked.

Periods

Publishers report by month, quarter, half-year, calendar year or fiscal year. Each kind of period is kept as its own series: a chart or table never joins months to quarters, or a fiscal year to a calendar year. A market that publishes several kinds of period has a section for each.

If the year-earlier figure for a period is missing, or is only a bound, no year-on-year change is shown.

Revisions and corrections

Regulators sometimes restate earlier figures. A restated figure is stored as a new revision of the same row, and only the latest revision is shown, charted, ranked and downloaded. Tables mark revised figures. Changes we make because of our own errors are logged on the corrections page.

League tables

Because figures are not converted, markets are ranked only on measures that read the same in every currency:

• Growth: the change in online GGR between a market’s latest period and the same period a year earlier. Only the latest period is used: a market whose latest period has no comparable year-earlier figure is left out, not ranked on an older period.
• Online casino share: online casino GGR as a percentage of all online GGR in the same period.

Each market is placed in one table, by the kind of period of its latest comparable figures, and is compared only with markets reporting the same kind of period. Each row states its period; when markets in a table are on different periods (one regulator has published August, another only July), the table’s caption gives the range. Revenue and tax are shown next to each market in its own currency and are not ranked.

Calculated totals

A few regulators publish online revenue only product by product, with no total. Where their product list is complete, IG Metrix adds the products up for each period so the market can be ranked and charted with the rest. Every such figure is marked calc. and is our sum, not a figure the regulator published.

• A total exists only when every product is published for that exact period. If one is missing, or given only as a bound or not disclosed, the period has no total: we never add up part of a market. If that period is the newest one, the market is left out of the league tables for that kind of period until it is complete, rather than ranked on an older total.
• If any product figure is approximate, the total is marked “about”. Only the latest revision of each figure is added.
• Where a regulator publishes its own total, that total is used and never replaced with ours. A regulator that totals some kinds of period but not others (half-years but not months, say) keeps its own figure for those, and we add up only the others. When one of our totals and one of the regulator’s end on the same day, the regulator’s comes first on the market page and is the one ranked. Where a regulator began publishing its own total part-way through, we add up only the periods before its first one, and from then on its own total is used.
• Calculated totals are not in the CSV and JSON downloads, which hold the regulator’s figures only. Each part links to its own file on the market page.

Markets with a calculated total: Michigan (online casino and sports betting), Pennsylvania (slots, table games, poker and sports betting), Netherlands (online casino, sports betting, horse racing and other) and New Jersey (online casino, poker and sports betting; until New Jersey’s own total begins with Dec 2025).

Denmark has no calculated total. Its regulator reports betting revenue from online and land-based shops as one figure, so adding it to online casino would not give an online total.

Comparing markets

Publishers group products and report on different schedules. This is what each one gives us, taken from the figures we publish.

Market pages

Each market with figures has a page with its latest figures, charts by kind of period, every figure with its release date and source, and a CSV download. A page with fewer than 12 published figures is kept out of search engines until it has more, so that a market we have only just added does not appear as a thin page. It is still linked from the market list.

Charts are drawn when the site is built. Every chart has a table of the same figures beneath it.

Known gaps

• Denmark: no wagers or active accounts figures published yet.
• Great Britain: no wagers or active accounts figures published yet.
• Italy: no active accounts figures published yet.
• Michigan: no active accounts figures published yet.
• Netherlands: no wagers figures published yet.
• New Jersey: no active accounts figures published yet.
• Pennsylvania: no active accounts figures published yet.
• Sweden: no wagers or active accounts figures published yet.
• Not covered yet: Brazil (planned for 2027), France (planned for 2027), Portugal (planned for 2027) and Spain (planned for 2027).

Directory listings

The Directory lists B2B companies A–Z. It never ranks or scores them, and companies cannot pay to be listed or to change their place. We write each description ourselves. Every fact on a profile (headquarters, founding year, categories, markets served, and the description, which is our own summary of it) links to the public source we took it from, with the date we last checked it.

Licences are taken from regulators’ public registers, and each one links to its register entry. When we find no licence for a company, the profile says so: some services do not need one. While we are still checking a company’s licences, the profile says that instead and makes no claim either way. Surrendered licences stay listed but do not count as “Licensed in”. Deal values are shown in the currency announced, never converted or summed.

A company can ask us to correct its listing through the corrections page. We change a listing only when a public source supports the change.