Recently released figures highlight Malta’s heavy reliance on the gambling industry, which accounts for a sixth of the entire business economy and almost all its arts, entertainment and recreation sector output.

Eurostat, the EU's statistic arm, said that while in most European countries the gambling sector accounted for less than 1% of the entire business economy, in Malta it was a staggering 16%, or around one-sixth.

It said this accounted for the “exceptionally high share” of the contributions to the business economy by arts, entertainment and recreation ventures – which includes gambling companies.

Arts, entertainment and recreation ventures in Malta proportionally contributed by far the biggest share of the national business economy (16.9%) when compared to other EU countries and more than four times the second highest Slovakia (3.7%).

Malta’s arts, entertainment and recreation businesses - which included gambling companies - proportionally added vastly more value to the country’s business economy than similar ventures elsewhere in the EU. Graphic: Eurostat.

They also employed the highest proportion of workers (5.3%) of any country in the EU, doubling the levels seen in Denmark (2.6%) in second place.

But there’s a catch: "arts, entertainment and recreation” businesses – conjuring images of theatres, music festivals and sporting events – also include gambling enterprises, which in Malta made up a staggering 98% of all contributions of the sector.

In 2021, Malta’s almost 2,000 arts, entertainment and recreation businesses added €1.9 billion to the country’s business economy, according to Eurostat data.

And with gambling businesses reportedly making up 98% of this figure, such ventures would have contributed an estimated €1.86 billion, suggesting the value added by the rest of the sector was just €40 million.

Eurostat figures also reveal how high-performing the gambling sector is relative to the size of its workforce, which according to NSO data was 9,300 in 2021. And with total employment standing at 274,000 by the last quarter of that year, this suggests that just 3% of the workforce were generating a sixth of the total value added to the country's business economy.

The contributions of arts, entertainment and recreation ventures were expressed in value added – which measures the financial value of a sector once expenses such as production costs have been taken out.

Such ventures include all those with a NACE code – an EU code classifying different types of economic activities – beginning with the letter ‘R’, including but not limited to performing arts, libraries, museums, gambling and sports activities and theme parks.