Social casino games now raking in us$ 1.6 billion in revenue

Gaming Club points out the data still shows the US to be the largest social casino gaming market. Of the us$ 1.6 billion total, North America contributes us$ 660 million. Europe is second with us$ 446 million and Asia comes in third with us$ 311 million. Australia lags behind somewhat. It comes in fifth place at us$ 59.8 million behind Latin America's us$ 180.7 million.

However, there are roughly 35.4 million monthly social casino players in North America, this is greater than the total population of Australia, which currently stands at around 22.6 million according to World Bank data. So while Australia has some way to go to catch up to the rest of the world, when population and the average number of paying monthly social gamers is taken into account, Down Under actually fares very well.

Many of these social games are played through Facebook. Competition is fierce but the potential for lucrative profits make it worth the trouble. Of all the social gamers on Facebook, around 13% of them are casino gamers; this is a jump from 8% in 2011 and 6% in 2010 according to data from analytics firm Kontagent. But Facebook will now start to face more competition.

Both online and land-based casinos are now seeing the benefits of including social casino games in their arsenals and are planning to expand or are already in the process of expanding their websites and land-based gaming options to include a social aspect. The number of people playing these types of games - including slots, poker and table games - has doubled over the past two years.

Additionally, according to Kontagent data, the average revenue per user on a social casino game is at least 40% higher than the average casual social gamer. It should come as little surprise then that SuperData expects growth to continue; it predicts annual global revenues from social casino games to tip us$ 2.4 billion by 2015.