Despite difficult global economic times the gambling world is continuing to grow at a steady rate. Scratch cards marketplaces and slots machines have a proven recession proof track record.

It is no coincidence that online scratchcards continue to grow and outperform other forms of online gambling. Scratchcards contain the magic wining format which has global appeal due to scratch card gaming being within most peoples means and accessible to all budgets.

According to a report released by Global Betting & Gaming Consultants, global gambling has had a record breaking year last year with over $419 billion dollars.

The main growth region has been Asia. Global revenues rose over 5.6% from $397 billion and are expected to grow even further this year to an estimated $448 billion. The markets with the strongest growth were Cambodia, Singapore and Macau.

Macau has become on of the gambling Mecca’s of the scratch card world and is the inspiration for the million dollar slots game “Macau Nights”

According to U.K. based GBGC director Lorian Pilling, the emerging markets proved to be more resilient than developed markets during the global recession.

GBGC predicts that the lotteries will soon be overtaken by commercial casinos as the main generators of gambling revenues. Lotteries made up over 28% of all gambling revenues in 2011 followed by casinos in Singapore, Cambodia and Macau making up 28%.

Online gamblers continue to flock to scratch cards due to their high winning rates. Most major scratchcard website operators like Winners Island guarantee that every 1 in 3 scratch cards is a winning one.

According to Pilling lotteries are quite resilient to global recessions but the European economic crisis needs to be addressed soon as the uncertainty factor has a major impact on spending patterns of potential gamblers.

Macau’s future gambling growth is closely connected to the financial stability of China as should the economy slow down in China it is bound to have a knock on effect on any future growth of Macau gambling.

Asia is one of the strongest online gambling markets and have become the inspiration of several scratch cards games  such as Tiger Mahjong and Sudoka Panda.

According to Nomura Holdings Inc. the GDP of China rose at a steady pace of 8.9% in the last three months of 2011 which was down from 9.1% in the third quarter.

Major scratchcards siteoperators need only invest minimum time in promoting online scratch cards as they share a uniform format globally.

In the U.S. lottery sales rose 2% but revenue from gaming machines outside casino in North America fell 14%. Europe produced an increase of 5.5% which was a good improvement over 2010 where it shrunk by 6%.

The picture is bright for the U.S. if the economy continues to recover. Europe is expected to grow at a steady rate of about 3.5% according to Pilling.

The revenues from global gambling are expected to reach over $500 billion by 2014 due to many casinos opening up in Asia.

Online scratch cardsare poised to play a pivotal role in the gambling industry. Scratch cards are bound to increase gambling revenues as more and more people are discovering the revival of the classic scratchcard game in an online enhanced format to that of the traditional “scratch games” which were bought at your local Tesco.

This new generation of Scratch cards players has it all at their fingertips and there is such a wide array of choice the players can never really get bored but are rather excited to try new and innovative games all the time.