UK Online Casino Revenue Expected to Payoff Well
Posted on December 21, 2007
With the new virtual online casino gambling prospect open to UK citizens, many are finding a little more time to spend on their favorite hobby. Jim Briden, a UK citizen, often spends his lunch hours betting. Sometimes on horse races, and other times on virtual online casino dog races.
“Over a period of time, I lose,” admitted 41 year old Briden. “But when you do have a win – what a feeling!”
Briden finds himself in the company of many sport loving Brits, who can’t resist the urge to splurge on his favorite pastimes. And the already interested public is expected to burst onto the gambling scene as new laws take effect.
Now that internet gambling has been formally legalized, and the government is licensing more casinos, revenue from the industry is expected to greatly increase. As always, critics of the new laws are predicting a new wave of problem gamblers and social problems. Despite all the criticism, towns all across the UK are competing for the rights to build a Las Vegas style “super casino.”
“Over the next few years, Britain will become the Internet gaming capital of the world as well as the betting capital of the world,” said the head of the betting research unit at Nottingham Trent University, Leighton Vaughan Williams.
Gambling shops and cafes are also popping up around the country. The cafe that Briden frequents has a front room with newspaper readers and coffee drinkers side by side with televised sporting events, roulette and poker machines. This is quite a nice change from the old days of darkened, smoky, back room gambling.
Once betting in Britain became tax free five years ago, the gambling industry has undergone a huge surge in popularity. According to Vaughan Williams, gambling in the UK has increased sevenfold, and UK citizens spent $90 billion on gambling last year.
In a country with so much emphasis place on sports, sports betting has always been a popular pastime. Now a days it’s possible to walk up to a bookie and wager on just about any event taking place across the globe. Accompanying the rise in gambling popularity, gambling is also gaining social acceptance. Part of this is due to the rise in virtual online casino gambling, and also to the growing coverage of world wide sports on television.
“It’s become more of a leisure experience,” said Vaughan Williams before adding that as the popularity of gambling grows so does its benefit to the British economy.
Tags: internet gaming, online casino gambling