The United Kingdom has reported a plan to increase the minimum age of people wanting to participate in gambling activities to 18 years from next year. The UK’s leading gambling charity GambleAware, which funds the UK’s only dedicated gambling addiction clinic in London, repeated calls for the industry to increase its funding for addiction.

Gambling Increase Uk Trade

The gambling industry in the UK is increasing at a rapid pace. Indeed, the industry has increased from being worth 8.4 billion pounds in 2011 to roughly 14.4 billion in 2018.

Why has this happened and what is pushing the increase? Well, there are a number of factors to consider here.

The Impact Of The Growing Industry

The new growth of the gambling industry is certainly bringing benefits to the economy. In 2018, according to statistics by the Statista there were more than 100,000 people employed in the UK gambling industry. Interestingly, the majority of these employees were in the betting sector with the number exceeding 53,000.

There are also now over 8,400 betting premises throughout Britain and yearly off-course horse betting alone brings a turnover of 4.32bn.

Despite there being a substantial level of jobs and roles in this sector, it’s interesting to note that the majority of gambling businesses were run with less than ten people. This suggests that businesses can be quite small and easy to handle. As such, they could be the perfect option for younger individuals who are just starting to enter the market.

The Gambler Demographic

It is worth exploring the demographic of the typical gambler. It is perhaps unsurprising to note that the main population of gamblers are quite old, between the ages of 45 and 64. However, there have been signs that gambling is becoming more popular with a younger demographic. This is true despite the fact that cases of underage gambling have actually decreased significantly.

How Do People Gamble?

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Perhaps one of the main driving forces for the increase in the gambling industry is the extended number of options. It’s true to say that gamblers have more possibilities than ever on how they want to place a bet. While they can visit a local business, it’s also now possible and easier than ever to gamble online. The online gambling industry has been increasing steadily over the past few years and more people than ever are choosing this route to place a bet.

In 2018, there were more than 36.6 million online gambling customer accounts. These were registered at facilities approved and licensed by the Gambling Commission of Great Britain. While you might assume that most of these accounts were inactive, research showed that 33.6 million had been used in the past year. This suggests that people are taking advantage of this possibility and using it regularly.

There is a massive variety of different online resources that people can use for gambling. Sites like 100Bestonlinecasinos provide information about the different possibilities, their benefits and the signup bonuses available to new customers.

As well as providing key information on the benefits of different resources, sites like this also help eliminate bad practices and rogue operators on the market. This is important as one poll revealed that trust in gambling has declined over the past seven years with many customers becoming cautious of unfair practices.

Changes In Government

The government has taken strikes to ensure that the growth of the gambling industry while also guarantee that issues with fixed-odds betting terminals are eliminated. For instance, the government has increased the tax for online gaming throughout 2019. At the same time, machines have been forced to lower the maximum stake.

Gambling Increase Uk Population

This is estimated to help reduce the tax revenue by £1.5 billion over the next five years. Taxes on gambling operators located outside the UK are also set to increase to cover any potential losses. It’s currently unclear how these changes are going to impact the growth in the UK gambling industry. Many have suggested that a restructure will be necessary while some companies may struggle to keep the doors open.

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Despite this, there is little sign of the popularity of gambling in the UK diminishing. Indeed, gambling is more popular than it has been in years and this is certain to help businesses cope with the coming changes. One change that we could see is the further decline of the high street bookie as more customers turn towards online possibilities.

It’s clear then that gambling is more popular than ever in the UK. This is undoubtedly due to an increase in available technology and more online options. Thanks to new tech it’s possible to gamble remotely on your phone or virtually any other tech device. It will be fascinating to see how far the gambling industry will spread over the upcoming decade and whether government changes will have an impact on the potential growth.

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