A Race To The Top
Added: Oct. 20, 2014
Things are heating up in the online gambling world, at least in the U.K. Here’s what is going on: a new report only just now released from Gambling Compliance Research Services (GCRS) points to a growing online gambling market.
Take a look at the numbers reported. GCRS states that the net gaming revenue of Europe’s largest online market rose by 12.2 percent. According to GCRS, the U.K. is Europe’s largest online casino market. Moreover, the metric referred to as “net gaming revenue (NGR)” rose by a startling 12.2 percent. That percentage increase translates into a E2.31Billion market. Yes, that’s billion with a big “B”. In other words, this is about big money.
GCRS goes on to paint a rosy picture for the online gambling market in the U.K. for the next few years. For example, GCRS is forecasting an 11.4 percent increase year over year by the time the year 2014 comes to an end. From there, the U.K. online gambling market is forecast to keep increasing by another 10.4 percent in 2015 and around 13.6 percent by 2016.
That being said, of course all of these rosy forecasts sidestep another factor in the U.K. online gambling market that is occurring at the same time. This factor is the increased competition in the U.K. online casino industry. In fact, a spokesperson from GCRS, Mr. Daniel Stone who heads data content was quoted as saying: “…the market share analysis shows just how crowded the online space is in the U.K.” In other words, the year over year success of online gambling operators in the U.K. has brought on increased competition for the online casino players.
Not only that, but it is not yet clear how a looming tax will affect the online gambling industry in the U.K. As you probably know, effective December 1st of this year, online gambling operators will now have to cough up a 15% tax on any and all wagers placed online in the U.K.
This looming tax hike will naturally force the existing online gambling operators in the U.K. to fully asses their online casinos and determine the effect of the tax hike. Will this tax hike push out the less well funded online gambling operators? It certainly takes no stretch of the imagination to assume that this tax hike will “thin the herd”. The bigger question that has not been publicly addressed as yet is how will this affect the U.K. online gambling industry overall.