Online Casino Gaming and Betting on the Rise in the UK

3.06.2019, 11:27

Online gambling and online casino gaming in the UK is on the rise in the UK, despite recent regulations, according to the UK Gambling Commission.

On May 30th, UKGC has issued a report on the UK gambling market for 2018. To be exact, the statistics included the span of September 2017 to September 2018. During that time, the gambling operators generated around £14.5b. This is an overall decline of 0.4% from March 2018. However, the decline regarded only land-based gambling, as the online sector has risen.

The small overall decline is attributed to the reduction in maximum bets for fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBT) that came into law earlier this year. This reduction resulted in a £5.6m decline in gaming machines revenue. However, it still amounted to £1.83b for the 12-month-period.

Online gambling has amounted to £5.63b or 38.8% of the entire industry. This is a 1.7% rise from the year before. Out of this number, the following sectors saw the most growth:

• Online casino games – £3b (1.8%)
• Online casino slot games – about £2b (1,3%)
• Sports betting – £2.1b (1.4%)

Online bingo, exchange betting and lottery also rose significantly, influencing the total gambling revenue growth.

It remains to be seen whether online gambling would dwarf due to recent gambling advertising crack-down. However, it seems that the online gambling sector in the UK will remain growing. This might be in spite of or even thanks to stricter gambling regulations.

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