Online gaming market growth comes to a halt in 2011

For the first time in its history, the online gambling market is not expected to grow further this year, according to a study published by H2 Gambling Capital.
The industry consulting firm believes that this poor performance is mainly due to the so-called Black Friday.
If the study is to be trusted, the Black Friday must be blamed not only for the temporary closure of several online poker sites such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker – just to name some – but also for the decision taken by gaming teams such as Rival to leave the US market.
However, Black Friday is not necessarily the only factor responsible for the halt.
Other factors must be taken into account, such as the difficult economic conditions, uneffective regulatory projects and the earthquake in Japan.
The catastrophe has in fact weakened the Japan Racing Association (JRA) which remains one of the world’s largest gambling operators.
Although the growth of the online gaming market is expected to globally slow down to 4.4% this year, the sector could still perform decently outside the US and Japan.
The market is indeed expected to grow by 12% in the rest of the world in 2011.