Europe is currently in a state of furious change when it comes to the online gambling industry and the United Kingdom is one of the latest to consider re-regulating their piece of the cake. You can imagine the government has been looking on scornfully ever since firms started to set up shop on U.K. soil as it gave the places that time forgot such as Gibraltar, Alderney, the Isle of Man and others a chance to capitalize.
Now the U.K. is proposing a point of consumption tax that most firms operating in the U.K. have branded as disgraceful, in not so many words. To try and get an idea of which part of the industry will be affected the most we posed the following question to our readers: Which part of the industry has most to lose from U.K. re-regulation?
The voting for this was the closest we’ve seen in sometime and bringing up the rear with 20 percent of the voters was bingo.
That was swiftly followed by casino and games on 21 percent.
Poker, which might see a big change in the way it’s taxed, polled 24 percent of the vote.
The unanimous winner this week, with 35 percent, was sports betting – and in a country full of sports fans it’s hardly a surprise. Firms are likely to see quite an effect from the changes that could come into force in 2014 and make them pay a 15 percent tax on any bets taken from players in the UK. Sports betting is seeing a huge amount of growth right now and it’ll have a significant effect on the companies involved.
In the coming week we’re looking at something that is already having a huge effect on the way gaming industry firms approach mobile – tablets. Over the past month or so we’ve seen two of the biggest firms on the technology scene (Microsoft and Google) decide it’s time to launch an assault on the tablet market in the vain hope they can take some share from Apple.
Apple’s hold has diminished somewhat in the U.S. since the Amazon Kindle Fire was released. The rest of the world is another story and with an influx of these cheaper devices it won’t be long before we’re talking about something other than the Samsung Galaxy Tab as challenging the iPad.
If you’re yet to take a plunge into the non-Apple tablet market then check back this time next week when you’ll be able to find out which could be your best option.
