Gamblers in Great Britain lost a record £13.8 billion (US.8 billion) last year, according to a new report from the UK Gambling Commission.
The results, covering the 12 months through September 2016, show remote and online gambling as the country’s revenue leader, garnering nearly £4.5 billion ($5.8 billion), an increase of about 7 percent year on year, and accounting for 32 percent of the win from all forms of gambling, including the National Lottery.
Within the sector, casino games generated the most revenue, £2.4 billion, predominantly through slots, which won £1.6 billion.
Remote betting, including betting exchanges and pools betting, most of it on football and horseracing, totaled £1.9 billion.
Brick-and-mortar casinos, of which there are 147, mostly small, venues, contributed nearly £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) to the total, an increase of 15 percent.
The National Lottery saw its share fall from £3.4 billion to £3.2 billion.
Opponents of electronic table games in the country’s 8,700-plus betting shops were sure to be alarmed over the £1.82 billion lost on the controversial devices, a hot button issue politically.
The report comes just weeks before a long-awaited government review of the industry is due to be published and will supply more ammunition to calls by the opposition Liberal Democrat and Labour parties to slash the maximum allowable bet on the machines, known as fixed-odds betting terminals, to £2.
The amount lost on FOBTs has increased by 73 percent since 2009, despite the number of machines rising by just 9 percent over the same period to 34,388.
The machines have grown to become a mainstay of bookmakers’ profits, bringing in an average of £52,887 per device a year.
The government review, by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is widely expected to recommend new curbs on the devices when it is published after the general election, with industry insiders expecting the max bet will be cut from the current £100 to between £10 and £20.
