While most of the products and services offered by companies worldwide are of a cyclical nature however, there are a few consumer industries that offer investment opportunity no matter what business cycle the economy is in. One such industry is gambling. Irrespective of the economic condition, there is always footfall in a casino or a betting hall. To diversify your portfolio, gambling is among the most interesting sectors to be invested in. The industry itself has an impressive lobbying group that will not allow it to slide. You do not need to apply for a gaming licence or invest in a casino in order to make an investment in this industry. The bond market and the stock markets provide various options for gaining exposure to the gaming industry.
Before venturing into investing first, it is important to know some basic facts about the business. Gaming involves a host of betting options, such as betting on sports and races events casinos, poker as well as slot machine. These companies can be of two types: American-styled gaming that is modeled after traditional European-style gaming, which includes gambling shops that retail. Due to the rise of internet-based gaming, another type of gaming firms have emerged which focus only online gaming. This includes both the providers of operating platforms and software and host gambling companies which provide gaming services to their customers online.
In the past, all types of gambling were deemed illegal. Many illegal operators existed on the regional scale because of a high market demand for the sector. This led to change in the perception of gambling activities and the governments of all countries have legitimized gambling labelling it to be leisure or recreational activity. This led to the widespread expansion of casinos (mainly in the US) as well as betting stores (in Europe). In the course of changing times the introduction of new products like slot machines off course betting, telephone betting and ultimately to online betting. While most of the countries are which allow gambling do not allow the internet gambling market, European countries have been the pioneers in the field. In the year 2000, UK followed by Italy and Spain allowed online gaming opening the way to new players to enter the markets.
While highly regulated the gambling industry, both on land as well as online gambling have transformed into lucrative businesses. Investors who want to get into the gaming sector could invest in companies that have shares traded on stock exchanges for instance William Hill. Furthermore, some of the gaming firms have bonds in circulation which offer great betflik opportunities for fixed income investors to gain exposure to the sector. However, this sector is highly regulated, exposed to technological advances and is a high-speed operation. Investors are advised to hire financial advisors who will be capable of identifying the risks associated with the bond and assess the their risk tolerance and provide recommendations for investments.