Online Gambling Strong in the UK According to Latest Figures

Recent statistics have show that the UK gambling industry managed to generate more revenue for the latest financial year. The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) revealed that £12.6bn €15.0bn in total gross gambling yield was generated from October 2014 until September 2015.

For comparison, the UKGC also announced that total gross gambling yield was £11.2bn €13.34bn from April 2014 to March 2015. There is an overlap of six months across both time periods, but the figures do suggest that the industry has been performing stronger of late.

Remote Gambling Stronger than Offline

Remote gambling markets proved to be integral in the revenue figures, with sports betting, casino gaming, and online bingo generating £3.6bn €4.29bn from October 2014 to September 2015. For those 12 months, remote gambling revenue accounted for 29% of the entire industry.

While remote gambling yielded positive results, there were some areas for concern among land-based operators. The headline issue was the fact that betting shops decreased from 8.975 in March 2015 to 8,809 in March 2016, representing a decline of 1.9%.

There were other areas of decline for land-based operators, who also saw the number of arcades fall by 11.1% from 1,937 in March 2015 to 1,721 in March 2016. Bingo-halls suffered a similar decrease of 10.1%, having fallen to 599, but bingo game total gross gambling yield did improve by 4.9%.

POCT Impacting Operators

When announcing the new figures, the UKGC said that care had to be taken in interpreting them, as operators have only been working under the parameters of the Gambling Act since 1 November 2014. Basically, operators now have to pay a 15% point of consumption tax (POCT) on their revenue.

The UKGC also issued a warning to operators for running betting markets on TV programmes that have been pre-recorded. Ultimately, the UKGC believes this form of betting to lack integrity.