UK Online Gambling Fans on the Increase

According to a recent survey published by the UK Gambling Commission, the number of online gamblers in the United Kingdom is the highest it's ever been in the last four years, proving categorically that interest in the lucrative and popular internet activity is steadily on the rise amongst UK adults.

Conducted by ICM Research, the Gambling Commission survey contains data based on feedback generated from a representative sample of 2000 adults in the UK once each quarter. Once compiled, the results are presented as an annual figure by averaging the results generated in the four quarterly surveys.

The survey revealed that participation in online or remote gambling by UK citizens has increased by 9.9 percent for the year to March 2009, in contrast to 9.7 percent in 2008, 8.8 percent in 2007 and 7.2 percent in 2006 during the same period. The increase has a lot to do with the UK National Lottery.

When the UK National Lottery launched its remote services a few years ago, many lottery fans started buying lottery tickets and other lottery-related services using mobile phones, the internet and interactive television. In fact, of the people surveyed, 5.6 percent of respondents said they used some form of remote gambling.

In 2008 that figure was the same, but in 2007 it was 5.2 percent while in 2006 it was 5.1 percent. The remote gambling survey also revealed that males (12.2 percent) are more likely to gamble online than females (7.7 percent), and that 15.9 percent of all UK online gamblers are between the ages of 25 and 34.

Although mobile gambling is becoming increasingly popular, online gambling continues to be the most popular format of all remote gambling platforms at 8.2 percent, with mobile gambling the second most popular at 2.8 percent, which dipped slightly from 2.9 percent in 2008. Interactive TV stayed the same at 2.1 percent.

Of all the participants surveyed, 43.5 percent admitted to only ever playing National Lottery games. Over the year, 7.5 percent of all respondents bought Lottery tickets, while 2.6 percent bought Lottery scratchcards, 1.8 percent played poker, 1.0 percent played casino games, and 1.1 percent played bingo games.