Almost half of the online gambling market is in Europe, according to a new study. That Europe has such a large share of the market shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, there is a de facto ban on online gambling in the United States and Canada, which makes up 2/3 (and the largest two countries) of North America. Asia’s largest country (also the largest in the world), China, also bans online gambling in the mainland.

The main problem China, the United States and Canada have with online gambling is a concern for the social problems – such as problem gambling – that they believe it will cause. Meanwhile, for most of Europe, the only problem is that they want to protect their own state-run monopolies on the online casino industry.

As Europe copes with the fact that people will continue to gamble at their favorite online casinos regardless of your intentions for them, their share in the market continues to grow. So far in 2010, the online casino industry has brought in approximately $29.3 billion in total revenue, with Europe accounting for $12.5 billion of that amount.

Europe took its first major step forward in the industry in 2005, when the UK was the first major European country to regulate the online gambling market. Other countries, such as France, Italy and Denmark, quickly followed suit. Greece, Germany, Spain and Switzerland are considering following the same path. The European Union supports a free online gambling market, where protectionism and state-run monopolies are discouraged. Meanwhile, the United States has operated on a de facto ban since the passage of UIGEA in 2006.

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