Industries · Media
Video games and betting: publishers, platforms, sportsbooks and lotteries
How game publishers, platforms and app stores split the money from games; why free-to-play games live or die on the cost of winning a player against what that player spends; how sportsbooks, online casinos and lotteries earn their margin and lose much of it to tax and marketing; how the rules differ across the United States, Europe, India, the Gulf, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Africa and Latin America; and the deals, court rulings and bans of 2024 to 2026.
Key takeaways
- Games and betting both sell entertainment through screens, both spend heavily to win each new customer, and both keep earning only if that customer comes back.
- A game costs most of its money before launch: years of development and a big marketing push.
- Video games are sold almost everywhere, with rules mainly on age ratings, loot boxes and, in China, approval of each game.
- Games and betting cases usually ask how to grow players or revenue, whether a game or market is worth entering, how to answer a change in fees or tax, or whether to buy a studio or an operator.
- Explain the value chain of games (developer, publisher, platform, store) and of betting (data and odds suppliers, platforms, operators, regulators)
- Calculate the value of a new player in a free-to-play game against the cost of winning them, including the store fee
- Walk a sportsbook's bets down to its profit: handle, hold, promotions, tax and marketing
- Describe how games and betting are regulated and taxed in each major region, and the shifts from 2024 to 2026
- Crack typical games and betting cases, starting with the player or bettor economics and the rules
Lessons
How video games and betting make money
The ways games earn (buy once, free to play, subscriptions, live services), who takes a cut on the way, how betting and lotteries earn their margin, and the measures each side watches.
Games and betting economics: the store's cut, the player's value and the bettor's tax
A big publisher's cost structure, the app store fees and how court cases are changing them, the value of a free-to-play install, and a sportsbook's path from bets to profit in two tax regimes.
Games and betting region by region: who plays, who bets, and what is allowed
How games and betting are allowed, taxed and led in the United States, the UK and Europe, India, the Gulf, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Africa and Latin America.
Games and betting players, trends 2024 to 2026, and how to crack the cases
The main players, the deals and rule changes of 2024 to 2026 (take-privates, new consoles, app store rulings, tax rises, prediction markets and bans), typical prompts, traps and drills.
Worked cases in this module
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Key terms
Start with lesson 1
4 lessons, about 50 minutes in all. Each one builds on the one before.