UK Gamblers Lost a Record £12.6BN in 2015

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Saturday, July 23rd, 2016 | Written by Charles Washington

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has released its financial results covering the period from November 1, 2014 to October 31, 2015, as the previous report only included five months of data up until March 31, 2015. As a result, the latest report provides an updated view of the state of gambling in the UK, and while it’s difficult to establish any type of trends from analyzing the data, the statistics do at least help to shed some light on how UK residents are enjoying gambling. Commenting on the importance of the study, UKGC Programme Director James Green explained:

“Market trends and consumer participation research are key to shaping the Commission’s regulatory policy to keep gambling in Britain safe for consumers, fair, and crime-free.”

Key Findings

Here are some key details from the report:

– The UK was home to 171,134 gaming machines, 8,089 betting shops and 147 casinos during the year studied. The numbers show that the number of betting shops declined during the year compared to the previous year’s figures of 8,975.

– Total gross gambling revenues across the UK totaled £12.6 billion.

– Roughly 29 percent of gross gambling revenue came from remote gaming, which includes online betting, bingo and casino games.

– Bingo venues and arcades seem to be waning in popularity since the changes in the gambling laws, as revenues generated by these gambling businesses declined by 11 percent. This could be because people are now able to play many of the games featured at these facilities online.

– The gambling industry in the UK employed 108,063 people.

– The National lottery generated £1.7 billion in revenues, and much of those funds were used for social programs.

– Online sports betting generated total gross gaming revenue of £1.358 billion and an additional £139 million was made through various online betting exchanges.

– Football was the biggest revenue generator for the remote sports betting industry, accounting for £449.44 million in revenue. Horse-racing was the second largest source of remote sports betting revenue at £315.56. Tennis was third at £61.6 million, dog racing fourth at £20.21 million, golf fifth at £15.71 million and cricket was sixth at £11.72 million. Financial-based remote gambling brought in £10.28 million in gross revenues.

– Approximately 21.57 million people in the UK have accounts at one or more online gambling sites. In total, the amount of money that was deposited in those accounts as of the final date of the report was £777.44 million.

Esports an Area for Future Focus

Money made through Esports betting, daily fantasy sports betting and virtual sports betting in the UK were categorized as “Other” remote sports betting revenue on the UKGC report. Together, these types of remote betting brought in £177.33 million in gross gaming revenue. Currently, the world market is estimated to be around $594 million, a figure that is predicted by Eilers & Krejcik Gaming to soar to over $10 billion in annual revenues within the next four years. It is this potentially explosive growth rate that has made the vertical a prime area for continued focus for the UKGC, as well as for other regulators around the globe.

However, the UKGC has also acknowledged the importance of providing adequate levels of player protection to preserve the integrity of the game. Addressing the issue directly, UKGC CEO Sarah Harrison said that it was important to boost consumer confidence by showing that the markets are crime free, and not rigged. Elaborating further, Harrison said:

“Keeping crime out of gambling, preventing unlicensed gambling, and maintaining integrity, for example in relation to sports and sports betting, are highly dependent on strong partnerships and effective powers. We will continue to use these to the full.”

Conclusion

As previously stated, more data will be needed to begin to observe real trends in the UK gambling industry; however, it does appear that remote betting has led to a decreased demand for in-person betting shops, bingo halls and arcades. As UKGC programme director James Green explains:

“For the first time the figures include almost a full year’s worth of data relating to online gambling operators; the market share of the online betting, bingo and casino sector is 29% and we’ll be interested to see how this varies over time.”

Therefore, we’ll now have to wait until the end of the year when the complete numbers are released to discover just how big of an impact the UK gambling law changes will ultimately have on the industry.