Every four years there comes a time when people looking to beat the gambling industry with a stick sit up and take notice. It’s not all bad for the industry but any report that tells the world how much people gamble, whether it’s increased, and how many problem gamblers exist, isn’t going to be massively favorable for the industry.
The UK today saw the release of “The British Gambling Prevalence Survey,” which was last released in 2007 and knowing the fast paced nature of the industry the figures are likely to have changed a massive amount.
This is the case as gambling as a whole has returned to levels seen in the late 90s, participation by adults in any type of gambling increasing from 68% in 2007 to 73% this year, equating to around 35.5million of the population.
Overall, the most popular activity is still the National Lottery but the results show that the online gambling industry has made gains since 2007. Gambling online on poker, bingo, casino, and slot machine style games was up from 3% to 5% of the 56% who gambled on something else other than the lottery.
To go into specifics, 14% of adults used the Internet to gamble in the past year, this including lottery, betting, casino, bingo, slots, and football pools, a slight increase on the earlier figures.
The report also signals an increase in problem gambling in the UK, something that industry body GamCare takes very seriously, and they are said to be “concerned” that it’s on the rise. In the process, they also confirmed that they will redouble their efforts to educate the masses.
