Online Gambling Numbers Up in the UK
A new report issued by the UK Gambling Commission this week titled “Trends in Gambling Behavior 2008 – 2014” explored “trends in gambling participation, including individual gambling activities, modes of participation and frequency” with the process “firstly merging datasets from the quarterly surveys and thereafter conducting analysis”.
Online gambling trends in the United Kingdom during the abovementioned years were one of the areas that were examined which showed that this sector saw an annual participation growth rate of 8.3%. The aggregate increase over the years noted in the report was therefore around 50%.
The report also revealed that remote gambling participation increased from 9.7% in 2008 to 15.4% in 2014.
The report showed that participation in remote gambling appeared to show stronger association with macro-economic factors than overall gambling participation. This included an increase in igaming participation by 0.54 percentage points when “disposable income per head increases by 1% whereas there is no such association between overall gambling participation and disposable income per head”.
The report by the UK Gambling Commission also revealed that participation among male gamblers increased from 11.7% to 18%, while the growth was recorded from 7.8% to 12.8% among women. This difference could be as a result of the growth of mobile gambling, particularly sports betting, where males overwhelmingly dominate the field.
The report also noted that “When excluding National Lottery draws the participation rate has also been significantly higher for men than women throughout the period, being 6.9 percentage points higher in the year to June 2009 and 4.5 percentage points higher in the year to December 2014.”
The report also showed that participation by individuals in the 35-54 year old age group in remote gambling increased from 10.6% in 2008 to 17.6% in 2014 over the past six years.
It also noted that holders of university degrees are more likely to bet online, participate in spread betting and in other lotteries, compared to those without a degree.
