Casino Gambling Forecast

Casino Gambling Forecast

FUTURE TRENDS

Digital television promises interactivity

The following Figure shows retail sales of digital television at current prices, 2001-05.

FIGURE 41: Total U.S. manufacturer wholesale sales of DTV sets and displays, at current prices, 2001-05

Year Sales at current prices

$million Index % change

2001 2,648 100 -

2002 4,280 162 61.6

2003 6,521 246 52.4

2004 10,420 394 59.8

2005 (est.) 17,388 657 66.9

SOURCE: Mintel/CEA

If digital television is not yet a significant boon for the gambling industry, it will be soon enough. Digital television is a new broadcasting technology that is expected to transform the television experience. By banding information into digital bits, broadcasters will be able to stream more product into the home than was previously available with analog broadcast technology. Wholesale sales reached $17 billion in 2005, and a household penetration rate of 15%, according to the CEA.

The higher resolution of DTVs will result in better picture and sound quality, but what is of interest to the gaming industry is that the new space on the digital spectrum will allow for more interactive technologies. According to Congress, broadcasters will switch from analog broadcasts to all-digital broadcasts starting February 19, 2009. At that point, homes will become interactive audio and visual centers with opportunities for shopping, online banking, video games, video on demand and gambling. Next to mobile CE products and broadband technology, digital television is another frontier for the home gambling industry. One such model is the one designed by the cable network Spike TV. In 2006, the network announced the creation of Spike Casino, a program allowing viewers to gamble on games like roulette, craps and slot machines in real time and to interact with viewers in live chat rooms.

Young Hispanics are wireless and already gambling online

Hispanic population growth surged nearly 58% from 1990 to 2000—more than four times the growth rate of the U.S. population. In 2006, the 44 million Hispanics comprised 14.7% of the total population of 299 million in 2006. More significantly, the community is expected to keep growing at a strong and steady clip. By 2050, it is estimated that some 30% of the entire U.S. population will be Hispanic.

Hispanics represent the ethnic group in the U.S. that is most likely to gamble online and at home, and most likely to be very frequent visitors at physical casinos (six or more times per year) (see The Consumer section). According to the 2005 report Trends and Impact of Broadband in the Latino Community, issued by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California, 14 million U.