CASE STUDY - LEISURE TRENDS: Gambling & Betting – Level 3 Background This sector of the Leisure Industry is sometimes called the Gambling and Betting Sector or the Gaming and Betting Sector, mainly for historic reasons relating to the regulation of the Sector. The term ‘Gambling’ is now frequently used as an umbrella term for the Sector, to include Betting. For example People1st, the Sector Skills Council for the Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism industries (www.people1st.co.uk), gives the following list of sub-categories for the Gambling Sector: • • • • • •
Betting Bingo Casinos Football pools Lotteries Machines
What does Gambling and Betting cover? The Gambling Commission in its 2006 booklet ‘Basic Facts About the British Gambling Industry’ gives these descriptions: Gambling: is playing games or betting. Betting: a bet is a gamble in which money is staked on the outcome of an unpredictable event. Bingo: is a game of chance: in return for a stake players receive a set of numbers and mark them off their cards as they are drawn at random by a caller. Casinos: casino games are games that are not equal chance games. Casino games are those which involve playing or staking against a ‘bank’, or where the chances are not equally favourable to all the players. Traditional casino games include roulette, blackjack and poker. Lotteries: a lottery is an arrangement where people pay to participate and one or more prizes are distributed by a process that relies wholly on chance. Machines: the term ‘gaming machines’ brings together many other sectors of the gambling industry which house gaming machines, including
Pools:
bingo clubs, casinos, betting offices, pubs, private clubs, arcades, and other non-licensed premises. in a betting pool, all the players’ stakes are pooled and later divided as dividends, once the operators’ expenses and profit margin have been removed.
CLOSE-UP: Gambling and Betting The British Gambling Prevalence Study 2007 ‘Gambling is a main stream leisure activity, enjoyed by the majority of the adult population without problems.’ There are many, many ways in which we can gamble today, for example: Lotteries Fruit machines Bingo
Greyhounds Casinos Horse-racing Football pools....
Economic value
CLOSE-UP: Gambling and Betting The annual turnover of the Gambling Sector has increased considerably over the last 10 years. In 2006 the Gambling sector had: • around 102,000 employees, an 8.5% increase on 2005 • a turnover of £50,576m which is approximately one third of the total annual turnover in the Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism industries, and an 8.9% increase on 2005 Source: People 1st Economic Data for the Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism Sector/2006 Annual Business Inquiry (ABI) for the UK.
CLOSE-UP: Gambling and Betting National Lottery • •
Operated by Camelot since 1994 The National Lottery remains the single most popular form of gambling in the UK, despite a slight drop in sales in 2006/7
Year
2000/1
2001/2
2002/3
2003/4
2004/5
2005/6
2006/7
4.57
4.614
4.766
5.012
4.911
Ticket Sales £ms
4.9
•
4.9
The National Lottery will help to support the 2012 Olympic Games, although good causes and grass root sports will lose income
Source: BISL 2008 Handbook
Recent developments
CLOSE-UP: Gambling and Betting On-line/remote gambling The Gambling Act 2005 was fully implemented in autumn 2007: • It allows operators to provide remote gambling facilities using equipment based in Great Britain • Remote gambling is subject to the provisions of the Act and to a regulatory regime determined by the Gambling Commission in consultation with the industry Changing technology means: Easy access to remote gambling from the comfort of our own homes through: • the Internet • interactive television • just by picking up the phone Examples: Eurobet; Ladbrokes; Sportsbetting.com
Regulation Regulation of Gambling in Great Britain is covered by the Gambling Act 2005, which set up the Gambling Commission to take over the work of the Gaming Board of Great Britain in regulating casinos, bingo, gaming machines and lotteries, and (from September 2007) also regulating betting and on-line gaming. The Gambling Commission has new duties to protect children and vulnerable people from gambling and has greater powers of enforcement than the former Gaming Board. The Gambling Commission does not, however, regulate spread betting (the responsibility of the Financial Services Authority, nor the National Lottery (the responsibility of the National Lottery Commission). The Gambling Act 2005 gave a significant overhaul to gambling law and was introduced in stages, in consultation with the industry and other stakeholders. Gambling Operators are regulated by a system of licences including operating licences, personal licences for some key staff such as casino croupiers, and premises licences. Responsible Gambling Although evidence suggests that the majority of those who gamble do so without problems, there are some who do experience difficulties. A range of organisations provide help aimed at promoting Responsible Gambling to operators, staff and customers, and providing advice and help where needed. Useful websites include: The Gambling Commission (www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk): Gamcare (www.gamcare.org.uk) and the Responsibility in Gambling Trust (www.rigt.org.uk and www.gambleaware.co.uk), Additional Information Age Restrictions It is generally illegal in Britain for people under 18 to gamble, although there are some exceptions such as pools betting, lotteries and certain low stake fruit machines. Employment According to the provisional results from the 2006 Annual Business Inquiry (ABI), for the United Kingdom, published by People1st in January 2008, employment between 2005 and 2006 is estimated to have fallen across the economy as a whole by 0.4%, but increased across the Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism Industries by 1%. Within the Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism Sector, employment increased most substantially in the Gambling Sector (8.5%). Employment fell in both the Travel and Tourist Services and in the Pub and Bar Sector. Remote Gambling Teachers/learners may find useful this summary from a survey on Remote Gambling Participation, taken from the Gambling Commission website www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk:
Survey data on remote gambling participation The paper provides information on participation in remote forms of gambling from December 2006 - September 2007. It sets out the findings from questions asked through an omnibus survey conducted by ICM Research. The annual data is published quarterly, based on an updated sample of 8,000 interviews. Key findings •
• •
•
Over the four quarters to September 2007 (i.e. an average of figures for December 2006, March 2007, June 2007 and September 2007), 8.7% per cent of the 8,000 adults surveyed said they had participated in at least one form of remote gambling (through a computer, mobile phone or interactive/digital TV) in the previous month. This compares with the 2006 calendar year figure of 7.4%. The remaining 91.3% of respondents said they had not participated in any form of remote gambling. Those participating in remote gambling remain more likely to be male than female, and are more likely to be aged 18 - 34. If those only playing the National Lottery remotely are excluded, 5.5% of respondents had participated in remote gambling. Overall, 6.2% of respondents said they had gambled remotely on the National Lottery in the previous month (either only or in addition to other types of gambling activity). Remote gambling via a computer, laptop or handheld device was most popular (6.7% of all adult respondents), followed by gambling via mobile phone (2.7%) and interactive/digital TV (under 2%).