Gambling News - August 2005 Edition

"Boom in Online Gambling"

60% of UK residents participate in gambling!

According to ORC’s annual Gambler Track study, nearly 60 percent of the United Kingdom’s residents gamble in one form or another. In spite of this, gambling has seen a decline nationally in recent years. Online gambling has seen a rise in the number of participants. According to the study, online gambling has seen a 46 percent increase in the number of participants in last year alone while the traditional methods of gambling in casinos are declining.

The pending deregulation of the online gambling industry will encourage even greater growth, but while online gambling is still a relatively small sector of the industry, it is highly competitive. The practice of betting by telephone, betting in shops and casinos, and betting on-course continued to decline in 2004 – a trend that began a few years back. In fact, since 1996, the number of adult gamblers has decreased from 37 million to 28 million.

Adult gamblers in the United Kingdom tend to play the national lottery as their form of gambling. According to the ORC study, that number is approximately 95 percent – more than half of all adults in the United Kingdom. The study also indicates that the decline in the number of gamblers is starting to level off, however, and interest in gambling and the lottery is starting to pick up again.

Camelot, Gala Group, Rank Leisure, and the National Lottery Commission all use the data which was collected by ORC in November of last year. In conducting the study, ORC interviewed about 4,000 adults and questioned them about all forms of gambling including bingo, football pools, online gambling, and the national lottery.