Betting experts estimates global sports betting market at $3 trillion

News on 17 Apr 2015

The global sports betting market is conservatively estimated to be worth up to $3 trillion, and 90 percent of it is illegally conducted, a United Nations conference session on match-fixing heard this week.

Making that assessment was one-time director of trading at the Hong Kong Jockey Club and now independent betting expert Patrick Jay, who claimed that around 65 percent of the global figure was spent on football betting, while tennis and cricket account for a further 12 percent each of the total.

But the estimate of a trillion dollars, as massive as that is, could be low, Jay opined.

“I say the trillion figure because I can just about get away with it without being laughed off stage,” he commented.

“The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of people think it is less than that, the only three or four people in the world that I actually respect on this thinks it is two or three times that. And it is growing.”

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