The proportion of British adults participating in online gambling, including sports betting, poker, casino and bingo, is at its lowest since regulator the Gambling Commission began publishing survey data on the market back in 2006.
New statistics published by the Commission show that in the 12 months to the end of December 2012, an average of 4.9% of the 4,000 adults sampled had participated in at least one form of remote gambling in the last four weeks, down from 6.1% in 2011.
The 2012 figure represents the lowest level of participation ever recorded by the Gambling Commission since it started publishing survey data back in 2006 following its establishment by the 2005 Gambling Act, when 5.1% of adults were recorded as betting or gambling online.
Overall participation in remote gambling - including National Lottery products - also fell to 12% last year from 12.4% in 2011.
The National Lottery aside, online betting on sports and other events remained the most popular form of remote activity in the UK, with 3% of the 4,000 adults surveyed by ICM Research – based on an average of the figures for March 2012, June 2012, September 2012 and December 2012 – saying they had spent money on this activity during the last four weeks. This was up from 2.2% for 2011, which lacked a major betting event to compare to last summer’s Euro 2012 football championships.
Just 0.9% of the adult population paid money to participate in other forms of online gambling (including casino, poker and bingo) in the 12 months to the end of December, according to the GC, lower than the 1.1% of UK adults who used a betting exchange during that time.
The Gambling Commission also published the first edition of its new dataset aimed at replacing the Survey Data on Gambling Participation it has published since 2006. With the questions geared to align more closely with those in the Prevalence Survey, these recorded a participation level of 8% for online gambling, including betting, poker, casino and bingo, with this rising to 14.3% when National Lottery products were included.
Article written by Stephen Carter
