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Market Monitor The UK
The UK
● A market under review ● The UK market pre-lockdown
● The sports betting market ● Quarterly numbers
● The start of lockdown● The UK gambling sector during lockdown
● Immediate impact ● Gaming ● Esports and virtual sports
● Taking notice ● Impact on the review ● Black market issues
PART ONE
A MARKET UNDER REVIEW
It is not too dramatic to suggest that the tone of the debate surrounding online gambling in the UK has deteriorated to the level of a shouting match . The forces now dug in on each side – the anti-gambling lobby represented by the Gambling Related Harm All Party Parliamentary Group and its cheerleaders in the press versus the Betting and Gaming Council and other industry voices – merrily trade barbs through social media .
All this comes ahead of two potentially sector-defining reviews . First , we have the government consultation on the Gambling Act , which runs until March . Then there is the concurrent review by the Gambling Commission of affordability measures , which runs to a similar timeline .
Both could transform how Britain bets . The profound changes implied by some of the measures being discussed , particularly around spending caps , could all but cripple the industry and most certainly will have a huge impact on how companies operate . To coin a phrase , even without some of the harsher proposals coming to fruition , the UK sector will be much more of a hostile environment from this point on .
All this comes during one of the worst pandemics in modern history and with economic uncertainty at an almost unheard-of level . Yes , the gambling sector tends to be recession resilient , but not so much when it is under attack to the extent that it is today in the UK . It is scant consolation that the history of licensed activity in the UK has been monitored by the statisticians at the Commission . But this does mean we can at least get an understanding of where the industry stands in terms of gross gaming yield as it enters a moment of great danger .
THE UK MARKET PRE-LOCKDOWN
The latest edition of the UK ’ s yearly statistics was published in late November 2020 . It showed a market that under more normal circumstances would have been called vibrant . Detailing how the market performed in the year to the end of March , it showed total online gross gambling yield ( GGY , Chart 1 ) rising 6.4 % year-on-year to £ 9.03bn , up more than half a billion on the year to March 2019 .
On the face of it , the 12 months iGB Market Monitor