The Polish newspaper Puls Biznesu reports that gambling has become big business in Poland, with Poles likely to spend $7.63 billion on gambling in 2008. The gamblers will also spend twice as much time on the pastime as they did two years ago, and the gambling entertainment bill will be double their beer and medical budgets.

The paper added that if the upward trend continues, the gambling market will soon be worth as much as the mobile telecommunication sector.

The Ministry of Finance has released figures showing that the Poles spent nearly $5.35 billion on gambling last year, a rise of 47.5 percent from 2006. It predicted that this rate will increase by another 40 percent for 2008, or around $2.23 billion.
Slot machines are the most popular form of gambling in Poland. At last count there were 35,000 machines in nearly 18,000 pubs, bars and service stations. Gamblers spent $2.18 billion on fruit machines last year, nearly twice as much as in 2006.
The government is not complaining – the Totalisator Sportowy, a State-owned lottery company, took in $1.24 billion in 2007, a healthy increase of more than 20 percent over 2006.

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