Gambling Commission reports on the industry

The UK Gambling Commission has published its latest report on the gambling industry – both land and online – in Britain.
In the section on online (remore) gambling, the Commission reports:
* The number of remote gambling operators licensed by the Commission rose slightly from 300 to 328 during the year, with the majority of these still relating to remote betting, consisting of betting exchanges, pool betting and general betting.
* Breakdown of types of remote gambling licences issued by the Commission:
General betting 72
Society lottery 50
Gambling software 49
Pool betting 42
General betting (telephone) 40
Casino 20
Betting intermediary 19
Gaming machines technical – (full, supplier and software) 17
External lottery managers 10
Bingo 9
* The remote gambling industry in Great Britain is made up primarily as follows:
• many of the large and familiar high street bookmakers
• large remote-only operators including Betfair and Bet365
• smaller betting operators that operate remote gambling facilities themselves
• smaller betting operators that have their remote operations hosted by more experienced operators
• fantasy football style remote pool betting operators
• smaller bingo and casino operators
• society lotteries that sell lottery tickets online or by telephone
• businesses supplying gambling software to gambling operators.
* The majority of gambling sites accessible to British citizens are regulated overseas. In many cases an operator is licensed by the Commission for remote betting but (for fiscal and other operational reasons) its remote casino and poker operations are licensed overseas. The main European overseas jurisdictions regulating remote gambling are Alderney, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man and Malta.
Information taken from regulatory returns 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2008
* Remote betting, bingo and casino operations employ an estimated 7 800 persons
* Current number of self exclusions at remote gambling sites 45 277
* Known breaches/attempted breaches of self exclusion 6 807
* Number of individuals who cancelled their self exclusion after minimum exclusion period 1 678
* Under-age gambling. There were 144 recorded incidents when someone under the age of 18 attempted to gamble online. This figure includes attempts to gamble that were, in the majority of cases, successfully blocked by the operator.
* Active customer accounts (for Commission licensed facilities) reached 6.2 million, and new player accounts 4.9 million. Funds held in customer accounts totalled GBP257 million.
* Gross gambling yield for remote betting, bingo and casino was assessed at GBP896 million
* The latest information on player participation from ICM Research showed:
• Over the year to March 2009 (ie an average of figures for June 2008, September 2008, December 2008 and March 2009), 9.9 percent of the 8 000 adults surveyed said they had participated in at least one form of remote gambling (through a computer, mobile phone or interactive/digital TV) in the previous month. This compares with the 2008 calendar year figure of 9.7 percent, the 2007 calendar year figure of 8.8 percent and the 2006 calendar year figure of 7.2 percent. 90.0 percent of respondents said they had not participated in any form of remote gambling.
• Those participating in remote gambling remain more likely to be male than female, and are more likely to be aged 18-44.
• The growth in participation in remote gambling is explained largely by increased online participation in the National Lottery. If those only playing National Lottery games remotely are excluded, 5.6 percent of respondents had participated in remote gambling in the year to March 2009, compared with 5.6 percent in 2008, 5.2 percent in 2007 and 5.1 percent in 2006. Overall, in the year to March 2009, 7.5 percent of respondents said they had gambled remotely on tickets for the National Lottery draw in the previous month (either only or in addition to other types of gambling activity).
• Remote gambling via a computer, laptop or handheld device was most popular (8.2 percent of all respondents), followed by gambling via mobile phone (2.8 percent) and interactive/digital TV (2.1 percent).
http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/pdf/Industry%20statistics%202008-2009%20-%20August%202009.pdf.pdf

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