A recent study suggests that a legalized and regulated online gambling industry in Latin America could generate $150 billion in revenue. During a global recession in which every country is looking for extra sources of income, gambling has been a common remedy. The Latin American region, which is made up of 33 countries in three continents, for the most part encourages foreign trade and direct foreign investments. Therefore, adding online gambling makes sense.

A recent study by Research and Markets looked into the current legal and illegal gambling activity taking place in Latin America. The report, however, focused on only the nine major countries in the region. The report estimates that Latin Americans spend approximately $10 billion (in U.S. dollars) each year on gambling and that on average, each person spends approximately $250 per year on gambling. Considering the low incomes in many Latin American countries, that’s no small number.

The biggest markets for online gambling in Latin America, according to the report, are Costa Rica, which has a $14.5 billion market, followed by Brazil, which generates approximately $7 billion on the legal lottery and illegal slots and bingo. Argentina has a gambling industry that generates $4.5 billion every year, followed by Colombia with $2 billion, Panama with $1.17 billion, Venezuela with $1 billion and Chile with $600 million.

Keeping in mind the difficulty of gauging how much money people are illegally spending on offshore online gambling sites, the real numbers could easily be higher than that. In any case, taking all of that into account, Research and Markets concluded that if all online gambling is legalized in Latin America, the industry could generate a total of $150 billion in revenue.

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