A new YouGov Custom Research highlights the importance of the 2018 World Cup championship to gambling operators, and more specifically when it comes to attracting new customers. According to information revealed in the results of the survey, over three times as many people placed bets with online gambling companies than in land-based bookmakers’ shops.
The research commissioned by the international online market research and data analytics firm YouGov has revealed how the moods of the fans of the largest football tournament on a global scale have pushed them to become more involved into gambling, regardless of the fact if it came to an office-based competition, a friends’ bet, or placing a bet with an established gambling operator.
As revealed in the results of the study, 14% of the UK residents (which represent approximately 7 million people) took part in gambling services in which all the stakes were divided among the winners, along with their friends, co-workers or family members. Almost a quarter of the full-time workers in the country (a total of 24%) were also involved in such form of gambling.
Apart from details about betting in the Brits’ work environment, the data provided by the YouGov survey suggests that approximately 6 million of the local residents placed a bet on this year’s World Cup tournament, either in a land-based betting outlet or on the Internet. The number represents 12% of the country’s adult population. As mentioned above, the British residents who chose to place an online bet at the time of the global football championship were three times as much as the ones who used the services of traditional physical bookmaker’s shop.
In addition, the 2018 World Cup resulted in bringing further benefits for online gambling brands, as more than 1 million “new gamblers” were added to the customers who used the gambling services provided by the companies at the time of the tournament. The category “new gamblers” was comprised of individuals who had not made a sports bet in the previous year.
UK Land-Based Betting Shops See an Overall Decline in Bets
Apart from bringing some new customers to UK online betting firms, this year’s World Cup also boosted some operators’ performance in the market. Of course, sustaining and maintaining customers’ interest in an industry which is pretty competitive up to date has been challenging, but it seems that some operators managed to do more than well.
For example, only days after the grand final of the global football championship, the British gambling operator GVC Holdings Plc revealed that its quarterly net gaming revenue marked an 11% increase thanks to the World Cup, which boosted win margins, volumes and value of new customer deposits. According to estimates, an amount of as much as £2.5 million was wagered, and the second-quarter online net gaming revenue of the GVC group, which owns a number of gambling and sports betting brands, rose by 22%.
The trend of lower sales being generated by land-based betting outlets has been also confirmed by GVC Holdings. The owner of Ladbrokes and Coral explained that an overall decline registered in football bets on UK high streets has affected traditional betting shops over the past couple of years, with the UK retail like-for-like net gaming revenue being fallen by 3% in comparison to the same period a year earlier.
- Author
Olivia Cole
