Online gambling storms ahead as the UK’s favourite way to play

Do you have any idea how much the UK’s online gambling sector rakes in each year? Most of us haven’t got a scooby. New figures released this week reveal that online gambling generates substantially more revenue than you may have guessed. In fact, over 33% of all gambling done in Britain between April 2015 and March 2016 was done online, amounting to an eye-popping £4.5 billion. Experts are predicting that it will have grown substantially again over the more recent period.

So says the UK Gambling Commission

To put those mouth-watering figures into reality for you, the entire National Lottery take for the same period was only £3.4 billion, over a billion pounds less than online gambling. High street bookies only took in £3.3 billion, and brick and mortar casinos lagged behind with just over a billion quid.

The new report by the UK Gambling Commission has showcased that online gambling is now the largest gambling sector in the UK. The report reveals that of the £4.5 billion raised from online gambling during the aforementioned period, over £2.6 billion came from online casino games, £1.6 billion from sports betting, £153 million from the ever-popular online bingo, £152 million from betting exchanges, and roughly £26 million from pools. Of the £2.6 billion from casino games, over £1.8 billion came from online slot machine games.

Betting terminals are in decline

An article published last month in The Guardian newspaper suggested that the industry is cashing in, as gamblers are losing more than ever before. They reckoned that £13.8 billion was lost by gamblers in the run-up to September 2016. None of the major losses players continually suffer in UK casino seems to have any impact on the amount of post-tax revenue raised by the online gambling sector. It seems that whilst politicians gamble on Britain’s future, British players themselves are gambling with their own, and are more than happy to do so – at least in the online sector.

The Guardian hinted that a change of direction is in the wind for land-based gambling. Most of the major losses in the gambling industry came from fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs), but now more and more people are joining the online craze, so the future could be bleaker still for fixed betting terminals.

The future looks bright

The future certainly looks bright for online gambling. Many high-street bookies have found ways to cooperate with their online websites so that players can chop and change between them with ease. Mobile gambling is on the rise and is growing fast, and new casinos are springing up left, right and centre to get themselves a slice of this veritable cash cow. Websites such as https://www.newcasinos.co.uk/, regularly keep online gamblers up to date with all the latest happenings in the online casino world, so even from the comfort of your home you never miss a beat. The online gambling sector is now the biggest in the UK, and it certainly shows no signs of slowing down.

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