Gambling has traditionally been scarcely affected by economic downturns, and for online gambling, an increasing pool of potential customers has been ensured by the continued growth of the Internet.
Following the latest market turmoil, due to concern over bad U.S. mortgage loans, the Price/Earnings ratios of some of the publicly listed gaming companies have shown to be strong: 

Company	P/E Ratio
Unibet	10
Betsson	16
PartyGaming	16
888 Holdings	11
William Hill	11

Although many gaming companies continue to operate with thin margins, for many others such as as Bwin and Sportingbet, the future is looking fruitful. By making a simple comparison of P/E ratios, gaming stocks seem to come at a fairly cheap price, experts said.
 
There are international trends that may continue to bolster the P/E ratios of gaming stocks.
 
In recent months observers have seen the European Commission applying increasing pressure on member states to liberalize their gambling markets, and the European Court of Justice has recently ruled against the existence of gambling monopolies. Today the legal landscape in Europe is looking much more promising than only half a year ago.
 
The industry suffered as a result of one time costs and write down of assets relating to the departure from the American market, after the passage of last fall's law prohibiting online gaming. Online gaming operators were also forced to restructure their organizations and strategy in order to comply with the new rules of the government.
 
Most online operators have worked hard this year to reduce costs and improve margins, with demonstrable success. Many of the leading operators have moved away from the costly rake-back, offering to customers which can negatively impact margins and reallocated the budget to more conventional marketing to generate revenue at a higher margin. This in turn has given smaller operators the chance to offer rake-back as a competitive offering.
 
Marketing efforts have also increased for online gaming companies. Unibet for example has retained the services of TBWA, a world leading advertising agency, and 888 has launched a £6 million branding campaign with Chi & Partners.
 
Experts said competition will "increase significantly" next year if the offline gaming companies decide to go online on a big scale, particularly from the US. They have the budgets to launch major marketing campaigns and already enjoy the brand recognition to enable them to easily capture a share of the market.
 
 
All in all, the public gaming companies appear strong enough to generate healthy profit for the coming years, regardless of the economy. And with a clearly emerging legal landscape in Europe, and the likelihood of future U.S. gaming liberalization, there appear to be enough signs to convince investors that gambling stocks are indeed a "safe bet," experts said.
 
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