The UK Gambling Commission has published survey data on remote gambling participation for the year to March 2008. There were 8,000 adults surveyed and 90.9% said that they had not participated in remote gambling – by computer, mobile phone or interactive/digital TV. The 8.8% who said they had participated in remote gambling the previous month (an average of figures reported for June 2007, September 2007, December 2007 and March 2008), is the same as the average reported for the 2007 calendar year and up slightly from the 7.2% reported in 2006.

If those only playing the National Lottery by remote means are excluded, 5.1% of respondents had participated. The majority of remote gamblers are male and between the ages of 18-34. Fewer than 2% gambled on interactive/digital TV and 2.4% via mobile phone, down from 2.5% in 2007. 7.1% gambled via computer, laptop or handheld device, up from 6.9% in 2007. The quarterly telephone survey is conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults.

In all categories of gambling there were only small differences between gambling habits in 2007 and 2008. The National Lottery data shows a 0.1% increase, sports betting was down by the same amount, as was betting on casino type games and bingo. Football pool betting and slots remained the same and poker was down 0.2%.

The Commission recently changed the categories of remote gambling identified in the survey. The ‘National Lottery’ participation questions have now been split into ‘Tickets for the National Lottery draw’ and ‘National Lottery scratchcards’. An additional category of ‘Betting exchanges’ has also been added. As the new categories cannot yet be presented as rolling averages they will not be reported until sufficient data has been collected. (E-05.06.08)

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