Global Gambling Data & Statistics
There are many sub-niches that gambling can be divided into, and each presents a unique way to obtain data and view statistics about this industry in different countries.
One of the most popular games at land-based and online casino sites are slot machines. There are thousands of different titles played by millions of players each day, making it the perfect niche to find some interesting gambling data and statistics on.
One way that a countries love for gambling can be measured is by seeing how many slot machines are located in that region.
Acquiring up to date data for each country can be tricky, so we’ve searched the web to find the most accurate data from different resources. This data should be an approximation, and provide a fair indicator to the total slot machines in each country.
Number of Slot Machines per Country vs Population
There are millions of slot machines located across the world, and an interesting study in 2017, found an approximate count across many of the most popular gambling countries. We’ve listed this data, as well as fresh statistics found online to rank which countries have the highest concentration of slot machines based on the machine/population ratio.
Infographic
Country Data
Japan
- Slot Machines: 4,500,000 (Pachinko)
- Population: 126,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 28
Australia
- Slot Machines: 200,000
- Population: 25,750,000
- Ratio: 1 per 128.75
Italy
- Slot Machines: 460,000
- Population: 60,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 130
Spain
- Slot Machines: 201,000
- Population: 47,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 233 people
Finland
- Slot Machines: 20,000
- Population: 5,500,000
- Ratio: 1 per 275 people
Germany
- Slot Machines: 275,000
- Population: 84,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 305 people
New Zealand
- Slot Machines: 15,000
- Population: 4,900,000
- Ratio: 1 per 326 people
United Kingdom
- Slot Machines: 190,000
- Population: 68,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 357 people
USA
- Slot Machines: 900,000
- Population: 333,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 370 people
Canada
- Slot Machines: 100,000
- Population: 38,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 380 people
Greece
- Slot Machines: 25,000
- Population: 10,500,000
- Ratio: 1 per 420 people
Argentina
- Slot Machines: 100,000
- Population: 46,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 460 people
Norway
- Slot Machines: 3,000 (IVT machines – interactive video terminals)
- Population: 5,400,000
- Ratio: 1 per 1800 people
China
- Slot Machines: 17,000 – Macau (Administartive City)
- Population: 1,400,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 82,352 people
India
- Slot Machines: 5,000
- Population: 1,400,000,000
- Ratio: 1 per 280,000 people
Interesting Facts from the Data
By looking at this gambling data, we can see that Japan leads the world in gaming machines, with 1 pachinko machine for every 28 residents. Italy and Australia come in second with an approximate ratio of 130 people per slot machine. Spain and Finland rank third and fourth with 1 machine for 233, and 275 residents respectively.
The remaining 10/15 countries have a ratio above 1 slot machine per 300 people, which appears to be a more standardized ratio across the whole industry. One crazy observation can be seen in Australia, which has approximately 0.3% of the entire world’s population, however the country hosts more than 17% of all slot machines in the globe!
Rise in Search Volume by Region
Google Trends provides access to some unique data, with the ability to go back through search trends from 2004 to the current date. This provides some excellent insights into the gambling industry, and we decided to see how the term ‘slots’ fair across the top 5 gambling countries. As can be seen by the graphs below, there has been a general rise in the search term ‘slots’ in these countries.
Search Term – Slots
Australia
Canada
Germany
United Kingdom
United States of America
Search Term – Online Casino
By looking at the long term trends for the search term ‘Online Casino’, we can see that most regions experienced slow growth over the long run, with a large increase in interest and search traffic beginning around the time Covid started effecting the world.
With more people staying home, searches for online entertainment businesses increased drastically. This spike seems to have dropped in most regions, as offline gambling venues started to open up for business again.