A new poll has shown that almost 80% of British punters are concerned that further restrictions on the betting and gambling sector are likely to push consumers to unsafe online gambling platforms that operate on the unregulated black market.
According to new research that was carried out by YouGov for the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), 79% of local gamblers believe it was likely for the restrictions to result in people moving to unregulated websites where there are no limits for customers. At the same time, 70% of British gamblers who took part in the survey said they would take into consideration a different bookmaker in case they were asked to hand over private financial documents as part of proposed affluence checks in order to place a wager.
The poll comes at a time when punters prepare for the Cheltenham Festival, the most important week in horse racing, which is watched by millions of people and attended by thousands. It also comes as the UK Government is preparing to finally publish its White Paper on gambling, setting out new reforms for gambling and betting.
According to preliminary expectations, this year’s Cheltenham Festival will be attended by around 280,000 people. They are expected to generate about £274 million for the local economy, while they place approximately £1 billion during the four days of racing.
The regulated gambling and betting market in the UK currently supports approximately 110,000 jobs in the country. It generates £7.1 billion for the local economy, with an overall tax contribution of £4.2 billion. A recent study has found that the number of players using unregulated black market websites has more than doubled in the last few years, from 210,000 to 460,000, with billions staked.
Unlicensed Black Market Does Not Pay Taxes to Support UK Economy
Reportedly, approximately 22.5 million adult Brits take part in gambling on a monthly basis, whether it is purchasing a lottery ticket, participating in a game of bingo, visiting a casino, placing a bet on a certain sport or playing online. At the same time, the Betting and Gaming Council has confirmed that gambling addiction rates in the UK remain low by international standards. This claim has been confirmed by the sector’s regulatory body, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), which has shared that 0.2% of the country’s adult population can be categorised as gambling addicts – a figure representing a decline from the 0.3% registered in the previous year.
As previously reported by Casino Guardian, British racing leaders and punters have expressed some concern that so-called affordability checks set at a low-level could drive customers away from licensed businesses operating on the territory of the country to the black market that is not regulated and does not offer safe gambling services to players.
The trade body of the licensed gambling sector in the country – the Betting and Gaming Council – now shared concern that punters would reject any affordability check that is enforced by companies that operate under the necessary licences and request financial evidence to be provided by punters.
Michael Dugher, the CEO of the BGC, explained that the aforementioned survey was the latest in a series of polls outlining the genuine concerns of millions of regular British punters who believe that the people responsible for making decisions about the sector’s future were “out of touch”. The boss of the British gambling industry’s trade body shared that the industry was willing to see genuinely non-intrusive affordability checks that use special technology to target and protect vulnerable players. However, the intrusive low level affordability checks would be generally rejected by British customers.
According to the sector, the more intrusive blanket approach risks having the exact opposite effect by encouraging customers to turn to the unregulated black market which supports neither the country’s economy nor the sport by paying taxes and where there are no safer gambling tools such as deposit limits, and self-exclusion.
- Author
Daniel Williams
