The independent body representing the legal gambling and betting operators in the UK has released details of a new study, reaffirming that local punters like gambling promotions and special bonus offers.
The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has made the announcement right ahead of the much-awaited release of the UK Government’s review of the Gambling Act. The study was conducted by YouGov on the gambling industry’s trade body’s behalf to probe into whether or not British gamblers approve of gambling and betting companies’ strategy to offer special promotions and bonus offers also known as free bets.
According to the results of the survey, it turns out that an overwhelming majority of gamblers who took part in the recent study liked such offers. As the BGC revealed, 82% of the survey participants gave an affirmative answer to the question of whether licensed gambling and betting operators should be allowed to offer promotions such as free bets to their customers.
Apart from that, the new research sought to find out more details about the impact of strict regulation on the local gambling market. More than half of the survey respondents (about 54%) said yes when asked whether a ban on promotions and special bonuses would benefit the black gambling market. According to them, the implementation of further restrictions on the legal gambling sector in terms of promotions is likely to result in customer outflow from the white to the black market which is not licensed by the country authorities but lures consumers with special bonuses.
Suspending Gambling Promotions May Trigger Punter Outflow to the Black Market
The CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council, Michael Dugher, shared that the new study’s results have only confirmed what the industry’s trade body has claimed for quite some time – that punters think of gambling just like they think of other products and they approve of special offers because they consider them a kind gesture on the company’s part.
Mr Dugher also explained that the UK gambling market remains “hyper-competitive” and some customers are using the services of a number of operators. According to him, fully suspending or severely restricting free bets and other special bonuses would have a negative impact on local punters because such a measure would make customer experience worse, not to mention it would hurt legal businesses and would jeopardise some jobs in the sector. Even worse, further restrictions could force some customers out of the legal gambling market and into the black market which is unregulated and unsafe but continues to grow.
The BGC boss called for Ministers to take into account the fact that millions of responsible punters enjoy gambling and betting during large sporting events, such as the Cheltenham Festival, and such gamblers would unfairly fall victim to the Government’s draconian measures if such are unveiled in an effort to address only a small minority of problem gamblers.
Betting and gambling has historically been hugely popular hobby across the UK. Reportedly, around 22.5 million adult Brits have a bet every month by participating in a different form of gambling, whether it is visiting a casino, playing bingo, purchasing a lottery ticket, placing a wager on a sports event, or visiting an online gambling platform.
At the same time, gambling addiction rates in the country remain low by international standards. The latest figures unveiled by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) which currently regulates the sector show that 0.2% of the UK adult population are categorised as problem gamblers. The figure represents a decline from the 0.3% registered a year earlier.
The regulated gambling and betting sector currently supports approximately 110,000 jobs across the country and generates £7.1 billion for the UK economy, bringing a tax contribution of about £4.2 billion to the Coffers. On the contrary, the black gambling market does not support the country’s economy because there is no legal mechanism to force companies offering unlicensed gambling services to pay taxes. Although black gambling websites are not subject to regulation and are often unsafe, the number of British people using such online gambling platforms has doubled in recent years, reaching 460,000.
- Author
Daniel Williams
