The virtual gambling industry is full of fierce competition. In fact, this competition is very advantageous for maintaining the attractiveness of the industry, developing investments in it, and facilitating its control as well. Thus, brands operating in the market can get an additional incentive to compete for a larger market share. In this post we will take a look at the biggest online gambling companies and the actual operators. Also you can check one of the best non Gamstop sites on Gamblingpro.pro.
1. Penn National Gaming ($12.63 billion)
In addition to owning casinos and racetracks, Penn National Gaming also owns 36% of Barstool Sports, a digital media company that produces content focused on sports and pop culture.
Still, Penn National Gaming is primarily a casino and racetrack operator based in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. In total, the company has 43 facilities in the United States and Canada. Most fall under the Hollywood Casino brand.
Penn National Gaming’s branches are located throughout the United States and, surprisingly, there is not a single facility in Las Vegas. There is a Horseshu Hotel and Casino in Jackpot, Nevada and an M Resorts in Henderson, Nevada. In April 2015, it bought the Tropicana in Las Vegas for $350 million, but that plot of land was sold in April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Française des Jeux ($10.2 billion)
The French company Française des Jeux is familiar to Dutch cycling enthusiasts. For years, a team of Française des Jeux participated in the Tour de France, the largest cycling round in the world. The French company no longer sponsors cycling.
The company was founded in 1976 and it is 72% owned by the French government. They therefore have a monopoly on organizing most games of chance and sports betting, such as the football toto, in France, the French Overseas Territories, and Monaco.
3. Melco Resorts & Entertainment ($8.45 billion)
Melco Resorts & Entertainment is a company founded on December 17, 2004 by Lawrence Ho. It is based in Hong Kong and listed on the NASDAQ. Melco Resorts, among other things, owns several resorts in Asia and Europe, while also developing casino games.
The company was founded as Melco Crown Entertainment (Melco Crown or MPEL), a merger between Melco International and Crown Limited. It was renamed in 2017 and is a subsidiary of Melco International.
In 2007, the company opened the Altira Macau casino resort and two years later the City of Dreams Macau opened its doors. Then in 2015, it opened City of Dreams Manila and Studio City Macau. In addition, it is currently busy building a City of Dreams branch in Cyprus, which will become the largest casino resort in Europe.
4. International Games Technology (£4,570,000,000)
This large gambling company has been in the business since 1975 and has been in the hands of several owners since then. William Red was the founder. Red made his own slot machines and sold them to gambling dens in the area. After it grew into a full-fledged gambling company, it was sold to the GTech company for an undisclosed price. The company has more than 12,000 employees and has many branches all over the world.
You can play slots from IGT like Wheel of Fortune, Roulette , The Joker’s Wild, Family Feud, and Elvis. You can also play virtual poker and bet on horse races.
5. Scientific Games ($5.61 billion)
The American gaming company Scientific Games was created by John Koza and Daniel Bower. The two gentlemen started the company in 1917 under the name Autotote.
Scientific Games provides gambling services and gambling products to the casino industry. For example, it has its own sports betting platform called OpenBet which offers sports betting in Great Britain.
There is a large number of products for which many gambling companies turn to Scientific Games. These are iGaming and iLottery products, but they also offer various types of slots, lottery game systems, table games, iGaming and iLottery products, instant lottery games, sports betting, and screens and other services. Scientific Games has a number of locations with a total of 9,700 employees.
6. 888 Holdings Plc. (£1,456 million)
888 Holdings is rightfully one of the largest gambling companies operating in the industry.
Aaron Shaked, Avi Shaked, Ron Ben-Yitzhak, and Shay Ben-Yitzhak started the company in 1997. Initially called Virtual Holdings Plc, it was changed to 888 Holdings Plc in 2002. The company’s headquarters were first located in America. However, when gambling was banned in 2006, the company had to move elsewhere. It eventually became Gibraltar and to this day the headquarters can still be found here. Although more and more gambling sites are offering games in America, there are still restrictions on what may be. After all these years, 888 Holdings is still one of the largest in the online gambling industry and that shows that it is a good company.
In America, 888 supplies the poker software to WSOP.com, among others.
7. Bet365 (Unlisted)
bet365 is a British company that operates all over the world. In 1974 Peter Coates started operating (country-specific) betting shops in London. From 1995, Peter’s daughter Denise Coates was in charge of the day-to-day running of the company.
In the late 1990s, Denise saw the future of online gambling over the internet. She bought the domain name bet365.com from eBay for $25,000 and borrowed £15 million from the RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) to build the online platform to start offering online betting. The bank gave the loan because the betting shops served as collateral. In 2005, Coates sold the betting shops to Coral for €40 million and repaid the loan to RBS.
Since then, bet365 has grown into one of the largest bookmakers in the world. The company is still family owned with 50.1% of the shares owned by Denise Coates. Her brother John Coates is also involved in the company, as is father Peter.
