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Published: Saturday, September 29, 2007 mgowanbo.cc
GBP 10 billion predicted in losses next year
The money lost by British gamblers will exceed GBP10 billion annually next year - a rise of 50 percent in nine years, and the biggest jump since the 1960s, The UK newspaper The Guardian claims in an article over the weekend.
The losses have been driven by the abolition of betting duty, the emergence of online betting, poker and casino sites, and a steady unwinding of regulatory constraints. But the biggest single drain comes from a new type of slot machine, offering video roulette in betting shops, says the author, Simon Bowers.
Estimates produced for the Guardian by a leading government adviser show GBP 650 million a year is taken from punters by the betting shop terminals - a sum almost matching the conventional casino industry's entire takings.
The Gambling Commission, the industry's new regulator, this month said in a report that one in nine people who played touch-screen roulette were classified as addictive or problem gamblers - the strongest link in any form of gambling.
Despite early pledges to ban the terminals, the government pushed through its Gambling Act in 2005 legitimising betting shop roulette and bringing it under the Commission. Responding to the author, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport insisted: "[Roulette machines] are still on probation. We will monitor them closely."
One in four calls to a helpline charity, Gamcare, are concerning betting shop roulette. Anthony Jennens, its chairman, said: "They're easily accessible, rapid-play, and you win or lose rapid rewards - hallmarks of games which tend to addiction."
Leighton Vaughan Williams of Nottingham Business School said British punters lose GBP 9.5 billion a year across all gambling- a 36 percent rise on GBP 7 billion lost in 1999, the year online gambling emerged. Excluding the lottery - the "softest" form of gambling - the annual loss from hard gambling widened by 56 percent in eight years to GBP 7 billion.
An adviser to both the culture department and to Revenue & Customs, Williams, said deregulation and online innovation will fuel the boom next year. He conservatively predicts the losses will exceed GBP 10 billion for 2008.
The Guardian piece claims that the boom started with the emergence of online wagering, but was boosted by then Chancellor Gordon Brown's abolishing betting duty in 2001.
"If you cut the price of anything you are going to get more of it - and the price of gambling has dropped," said Williams. The most dramatic craze due to the tax change was touch-screen roulette. He estimates the 24 500 UK terminals take GBP 650 million a year.
David Harding, outgoing chief executive of William Hill, confirms that one in three pounds lost by his punters is on touch-screen roulette. Just over half of all terminals belong to Ladbrokes and William Hill; together they take GBP 420 million a year.
The Association of British Bookmakers told the author: "Our machines are fully regulated now: They are licensed." |
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发表于 2007-9-30 09:37
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