New UK Gambling Numbers

The UK Gambling Commission was established under the 2005 UK Gambling Act and took effect in September 2007. Its purpose is to regulate gambling in the public interest. The GC replaced the Gambling Board as the body responsible for keeping crime out of gambling, ensuring fair and open operations and protecting children and vulnerable people.

They have another important task - that of keeping tabs on online gambling activity. This is useful material for the online gambling casinos to help them in the development of their businesses.

The findings
In a survey released last week, on the first anniversary of online gambling in its regulated form in the UK, 8.8 percent of the 8,000 adults surveyed said they had participated in at least one form of remote gambling (through a computer, mobile phone or interactive/digital TV) in the previous month. This is the same figure as the 2007 calendar year figure, which was up on the 2006 7.2 number.

90.9 percent of respondents said they had not participated in any form of remote or online - gambling.

Those participating in remote gambling remain more likely to be male than female, and are more likely to be aged 18-44.

The lottery effect
The figures include players in the National Lottery. Without them, 5 percent of respondents had participated in remote gambling.

Remote gambling via a computer, laptop or handheld device was most popular (6.9 percent of all adult respondents), followed by gambling via mobile phone (2.3 percent) and interactive/digital TV (2.0 percent).

An earlier report released by the UK government on Wednesday, reports that the number of people who regularly gamble online is 3.5 million. While this number represents a considerable increase compared to past surveys, the number of problem gamblers seems to have remained constant, at about 250,000.