National Lottery still number one!

The British Gambling Commission made a survey about the gambling behavior and compared it with the survey results from 1999. Read more to find out about the results...

What is the British Gambling Prevalence Survey?
The British Gambling Prevalence Survey is a large-scale nationally representative survey of participation in gambling and the prevalence of problem gambling in Great Britain. The survey builds on the first British gambling prevalence survey carried out in 1999, which was commissioned by GamCare.

“The key message is that overall there has been surprisingly little change either in the number of gambling participants or to the number of problem gamblers since 1999,”
said Peter Dean, the Gambling Commission’s Chairman.

Key results of the survey are:

• 68% of the population had participated in some form of gambling activity within the past year.
• For around 10 million people, their only gambling activity in the past year had been participating in a National Lottery draw.
• 48% of the population had participated in another form of gambling in the past year, excluding the National Lottery.

 

The most popular gambling activities in Great Britain in 2007 were:

1. The National Lottery Draw (57%)
2. Scratchcards (20%)
3. Betting on horse races (17%) and
4. Playing slot machines (14%)

Only a small proportion of people engaged in the new forms of gambling available in Great Britain:

• only 6% used the internet for gambling activities.
• only 3% player online poker or online casino games
• and antoher 4% were placing bets with an online bookmaker

 

“We remain concerned that there are still over a quarter of a million adults who are problem gamblers. The challenge, for us and for the industry, is to tackle this through the new licensing regime that has been put in place from 1 September. British-based gambling operators must now comply with strict and detailed social responsibility obligations, and we will monitor how these requirements are met."

But according to these numbers i think that especially online poker can not be a great concern of governments. Perhaps they and other european governments should focus more on the typical gambling stuff like horse races, roulette or black jack. The great fear that online poker would bring more people to the dark side of gambling proofed wrong.

Read more and discuss in our forum. What should governments do and what shouldn't they do...

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