The UK online gambling industry is going strong and has generated more revenue in the latest financial year than ever before. The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has revealed that they’ve managed to generate a total of £12.6bn in total gross gambling from October 2014 to September 2015. In the previous financial year, they only managed to generate £11.2bn.
"One of the essential income sources is the remote gambling markets that include sports betting, casino gaming, and online bingo."
This source alone has managed to generate £3.6bn from October 2014 to September 2015. In that 12-month period remote gambling has been responsible for 29% of the revenue income of the entire industry.
Land-based casinos on the decline
While online gambling has been a massive source of revenue income, land-based UK casinos have been experiencing a decrease in revenue generation. This is a major cause of concern seeing as land-based casinos are experiencing a massive decline of 1.9%, betting shops have decreased from 8,975 in March 2015 to 8,809 in March 2016.
Other areas of decline for land-based operators include the number of arcades that have fallen by 11.1% from 1,937 in March 2015 to 1,721 in March 2016. Bingo halls have also experienced an incredible 10.1% decrease and fell to only 599. Some good news is that the overall gross gambling income from bingo has improved by 4.9%.
Upon the release of these new figures, the UKGC said that the figures have to be interpreted with care. Especially since UK online casinos have worked under the restrictions of the Gambling Act since 01 November 2014. This means that operators have to pay 15% point of consumption tax on the revenue they bring in. Warnings have also been issued to operators for running betting markets on pre-recorded TV programmes. In the eyes of the UKGC this form of betting lacks integrity and shouldn’t be encouraged.