The online gambling industry has exploded lately, becoming a $67 billion market globally as of 2025. Online gambling sites recognize they need to stand out to both acquire and retain customers in an increasingly competitive market. One of the most critical ways they can differentiate themselves is by providing great customer service and support.
Numbers Behind Online Gambling’s Growth
The past decade has seen substantial growth in the online gambling industry:
| Year | Global Online Gambling Market Size | Growth vs Previous Year |
| 2016 | $43.7 billion | – |
| 2019 | $53.7 billion | +23% |
| 2022 | $64.8 billion | +21% |
| 2025 | $67.2 billion | +4% |
Several factors have fueled this growth:
- Increasing internet access and mobile device usage globally
- More jurisdictions regulating and legalizing online gambling
- Innovation in live dealer and virtual reality casino games
- Demographic shifts as millennials and Gen Z become core customer groups
With so many options available across casino, sports betting, poker, bingo and other verticals, player acquisition and retention have become paramount concerns for gambling operators, like Mr.Vegas Casino. Offering exceptional customer service emerges as a key way sites can differentiate themselves and earn loyal, long-term customers.
Why Customer Service Matters in Online Gambling
For any industry today, customer service and support are crucial for acquiring new customers, retaining existing ones, minimizing churn, building loyalty and generating word-of-mouth referrals. This holds especially true for businesses operating in highly competitive markets.
Several unique dynamics in the online gambling industry make customer service particularly impactful:
Trust and Safety Concerns
Gambling with real money online requires substantial consumer trust in an operator’s honesty, security protocols and adherence to regulations. Strong customer service helps provide this reassurance.
Entertainment-Based Industry
Unlike necessities like banking or insurance, consumers can easily switch gambling sites for entertainment if dissatisfied. Customer support helps minimize churn risks.
Complex Products and Questions
The intricacies around games, bets, bonuses, payments and rules lead many players to require support at some stage. Prompt, empathetic assistance builds lasting positive brand associations.
Safety and Responsibility
With gambling tied to addiction and mental health risks for some, caring and compassionate service teams help demonstrate an operator’s commitment to consumer protection.
Regulatory Oversight
As online gambling grows, regulators impose strict requirements around complaint handling, dispute resolutions and customer communication. Investing in service helps sites maintain compliance.
By focusing intently on customer service, forward-thinking gambling businesses recognize they can tick all these boxes while also making real human connections with their players.
Current State of Customer Support in Online Gambling
While some reputable sites like BetMGM, Caesars and BetRivers already strive for very high service levels as a competitive advantage, the overall state of customer support across online gambling leaves substantial room for improvement.
When benchmarking service metrics across major operators, third-party testing reveals:
- Wait times: Average wait times to speak to an agent range widely from 2-3 minutes at the great sites to over 30 minutes at others during peak periods.
- Resolution speed: The time to resolve complex issues like disputed funds or locked accounts stretches days or weeks at some operators.
- Communication clarity: Explanations of decisions around bonuses, game outcomes, KYC checks and other issues tend to lack clarity and empathy at less customer-centric organizations.
- Cross-channel consistency: Players often get conflicting answers on the same question via email, live chat and phone support when internal systems and agent training prove inadequate.
These pain points mean that even in a growth industry, many operators see higher customer churn than necessary. Players who have a bad service experience at one gambling site hold negative perceptions that frequently cause them to look elsewhere or even exit the industry entirely if issues recur across multiple operators.
By learning from great-in-class examples in gambling and beyond, operators now recognize they must make significant investments to improve support infrastructure and training.
Key Features of Strong Customer Support
What does great customer service look like for an online gambling operator? While execution may differ across phone, email, chat, social media and in-person channels, world-class gambling support generally includes:
Fast Response Times
Customers get quick replies, ideally under a minute for chat and calls. Even complex email cases see first contact within hours rather than days. Shorter waits enhance satisfaction while letting players get back to gaming faster.
Helpful, Friendly Agents
Care team members deeply understand all games, bets, tools and site functionality so they can answer effectively. They maintain a courteous, compassionate tone even during lengthy calls and tricky complaints.
Individualized Focus
Agents personalize communication using the player’s name and account specifics. They avoid impersonal, corporate-speak responses that alienate customers emotionally. Gambling has a deeply personal aspect players want recognized.
Cross-Channel Consistency
Support teams have access to integrated systems and contact histories, so they can pick up any prior case details fast. Players get similar answers and continuation of earlier dialogs when switching channels.
Resolution Orientation
The first agent may not always resolve complex issues outright. But staff follows up proactively with additional subject matter experts and management escalation to ultimately fix the customer’s problem satisfactorily.
Responsible Service
For players showing patterns of excessive spending, losses or addiction behaviors, agents gently seek to understand situations and provide resources like deposit limits or referrals to counseling services.
Demonstrating genuine care for customer wellbeing separates conscientious operators.
For online gambling providers, moving towards this level of support requires sizable investments in hiring, training, integration, analytics and quality assurance. But the long-term benefits in acquisition, loyalty and word-of-mouth make the returns well worth these investments.
Outlook for the Future
As competition increases across the maturing online gambling industry, we can expect customer service to feature even more prominently as a differentiator operators use to stand out in crowded markets. Sites lagging in support will find themselves losing customers to the competition.
Industry data already suggests that in markets like New Jersey and Pennsylvania with many licensed gaming sites, over 20% of online casino players switch operators in a quarter primarily due to customer experience factors. Account funding challenges, disputes over denied winnings, and problems understanding rewards all fuel these defections. Operators who can minimize such issues through caring and responsive support teams will gain advantage.
And with potential new U.S. state markets like California, New York and Massachusetts coming online in the future pending legislation, millions of new players will enter online gambling needing education and assistance. Gaming sites that already have assembled skilled, scalable support capacity will emerge as go-to favorites in these states.
