UK’s Online Gambling Revenue Dropped for the First Time Ever
The UK has always been at the top when it comes to the countries that gamble the most. When it comes to gambling, the locals have their attentions set to sports betting and casino games. Sports betting is legal in the UK and so is gambling in casinos, online or not.
Online poker, online casino games like the slots, bingo, lottery, and sports betting fall under the purview of the UK’s Gambling Commission. These are regulated through the Gambling Act of 2005. Any gambling operators are required to acquire a license from the commission to legally operate.
Because of how gambling is welcomed by the country, the gambling industry in the UK has always been doing great and continuously grows each year. However, recently, things have been a bit different for this industry.
When it comes to online gambling, it’s the online casino games that bring in the biggest revenues. In total, online casinos have a yield of 4 billion US dollars. 2.74 billion Us dollars of that amount is from online slots. Meanwhile, over half a million dollars came from online roulette, which is a casino game that seems to be on the rise in the UK.
Worldwide, there is rise when it comes to the popularity of online casinos, especially for live casino games. The best live casino experiences that players get are usually through their mobile devices. Mobile technology has surely helped the growth and accessibility of gambling worldwide.
Based on a year-on-year report, the yield of the general gambling industry in the UK fell by 0.3 percent. This was released through the commission’s annual statistic report. According to the report, online gambling revenues, in particular, fell by 0.6 percent. It was down to £5.3 billion or $6.84 billion.
This decline is said to be the first for online gambling. However, it’s not just online casinos that encountered a slide down. Even the sports betting industry experienced the same thing. The betting revenues fell by 10 percent in total.
When it comes to sports betting, it’s football that the majority of the bettors in the UK wager on. Wagers on football alone accounts for 1.28 billion US dollars. Next to football is horse racing. Its revenue is around 712 million US dollars. However, horse racing bets declined 15 percent on a year-on-year basis.
The UK is also faced with gambling problems. It’s also one of the countries that have the most problematic gamblers and this is why the government is already taking steps to ensure safe gambling in the country.
One of the steps that the UK is taking is banning the advertisements for any online gambling activities. This was agreed by online casino giants to stave off any more regulatory actions regarding online gambling. The government is simply serious about the resolutions they need for gambling problems.
Even five of the biggest online casino operators in the country pledged gambling safety steps that they will implement to let everyone see that they are also all for fighting the risks of gambling.
These companies pledged to prevent underage gambling, support treatments for gambling problems, and to generally promote a culture for safer gambling.
Paddy Power and Betfair’s owner spoke about these commitments recently. “These commitments are an important step forward for the sector in their own right and also signal a genuine desire to ensure that acting responsibly is at the heart of our businesses.”
Overall, when it comes to the decline of the gambling revenues in the UK, a lot of it came from horse racing. The sales for the national lottery rose to 4 percent. Land-based casinos also declined by 10.3 percent.
These numbers are the findings of the commission even before the implementation of a £2 maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals or FOBT. This was another implementation to lessen the risks of gambling problems in the country.
With that, it’s still possible that a decline when it comes to the revenues of the gambling in the UK will happen again next year. The FOBT stake decline will surely affect the operations of many betting shops. In fact, since this happened, the number of betting shops in the country already fell 3 percent.
The 3 percent decrease of the number of betting shops in the UK is already he sixth year of straight shrinkage. It’s going to be hard to predict what will happen next year as many also sees how the election will shake up the gambling industry.