The online betting industry has been a topic of relevance and controversy pretty much since the moment when the first online sportsbook appeared,  it was towards the end of the 90’s decade when the phenomenon had already popularized and companies had established offshore in places such as Curacao, Antigua & Barbuda, Costa Rica and Panama; it’s reported that what started in the mid-nineties with about 15 companies had snowballed to over 200 online betting sites by the end of that decade in between casinos, sportsbooks and bingos, and data has been released indicating that just in 1998 the profits of these industry where of around U.S.$830 millions [1] .

The majority of the surging companies where targeted towards the U.S. market and in some cases the European market; yet this last market was mostly taken over by local companies and has continued to evolve as new regulations and licenses come up in the different countries, such as UK, Spain and Italy.  The U.S. market on the other hand, has always been subject of controversy and legality issues and just a few years ago the United States authorized gambling licenses for some states, which include New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware.  According to data provided by Forbes (article: The Time is here for Online Gaming), New Jersey started its online gaming operations in November 26^th 2013 and by the end of that year they’d already generated $8.3 million.  This is just a small evidence that the online gambling business is and will continue to grow, evolve and expand, and has recently been doing so to  areas of Latin America and Mexico.

Sports, entertainment, money, there’s a lot of reasons that people are attracted to wagering; and when you give them the possibility of betting from anywhere in the world at any time during the day and in a wide variety of options, that’s obviously a recipe for success .

Because of the characteristics of the Latin American countries, online gambling hasn’t yet reached its peak, and it’s far from it; different currencies, legislation, the technological limits that some countries face, the banking platforms or the economic and political instability have presented a challenge for this market. But efforts are been focused on countries with a large population: Mexico, Brasil and Argentina since it’s obviously a more attractive market, yet other countries such as Dominican Republic, Chile and Ecuador  have reported growth in the online gambling sector.

The technological advances and tools such as those offered by pay-per-head (PPH) services such as leading company IDSca are also an will continue to be essential factor in the growth of this market, making it simpler for sportsbooks to bring their business to different countries in a safe way.

[1] http://www.onlinegambling.com/online-gambling-history.htm