The Playing Field: Eastern Europe
Buzz about the emerging Eastern European online casino gambling industry began
about five years ago when industry analysts were attempting to make predictions
about the future of the industry and where the big bucks would be over the next
five to ten years. Interestingly, Asia was tops on the list for most of the
major European gambling brands despite the fact that Asia, both then and now,
had major blocks and bans related to both land and internet gambling. Eastern
Europe’s potential was only murmured about as the Western European facing brands
looked far to the east for this connection while Eastern Europe began to build a
strong financial and internet infrastructure that has now created a solid
foundation for the growth and rise of Eastern European facing online casinos.
Interestingly the hype predicted that Asia’s online casino gambling market would
open and boom long before Eastern Europe became a big contender on the scene but
many of those predictions are proving wrong since Asian governments have
remained very strong in their anti-gambling attitudes while Eastern Europe has
developed far faster than anticipated. What’s really interesting right now is
the fact that online casinos in Eastern Europe are still only an after thought
for many gambling groups, but those that have decided to focus on this market
realized that it’s a diamond in the rough right now that is currently going
through the shining process.
Eastern Europe is a market simply oozing potential for strong online casino
growth and development. Although there was a bit of talk about Eastern Europe
five years ago this market has actually surpassed expectations and all that is
left is for gambling groups to wait out and see how nations like Czech, Croatia,
Hungary and others fall on their pending regulatory developments. |