In our last article on online gambling we looked at the current state of the UK market and its wider legal framework. Today we’ll be looking at the industry’s key markets, players, operators, payments and security.
What has the online gambling market looked like over the past year?
Overall, online gambling is showing good signs of growth with revenue levels almost double from last year. Most of this growth is fuelled by the rise in revenues from casino games, agen deposit pulsa terbaik the fast growth of poker as a skill game and growth in the mobile markets.
Despite the growth of this business sector there are still a number of key challenges that face it.
These include:
Legislative and regulatory change,
Security issues,
Lawful online gambling
Infrastructure,
Financial volatility
Risk-free gaming
Legislative and regulatory change
The big story in the industry over the past year has been legislative and regulatory change. In the UK this has mostly focused on three key areas: (1) PGA gambling online (by new entrants to the market); (2) Financial arrangements (changes to sponsorship and advertising, account opening etc); and (3) Player protection (we’ll look at this further in this article).
The UK government has been relatively hands-off with regards to the growth of online gambling and has allowed the market to develop without overly-restrictive laws. However, in recent times there have been a number of big legislative changes. This has seen a number of different laws changed, agen deposit pulsa terbaik including the (slightly modified) Betting and Gaming Act 2006, the Gambling Act 2005 and the Gambling Act 2005 Amendment Act 2010.
These changes have come about in the wake of the High Court decision in Gibraltar. The court’s ruling has shown that online gambling in the UK can only take place in Gibraltar. It’s worth noting that Gibraltar, although a separate country to the UK, is part of the UK under the Lisbon Treaty and so shares the UK’s legal framework.
The Gibraltar ruling has, and will, have a number of impacts. Firstly, it will prevent a new operator from entering the market and will restrict the number of operators that can operate in the UK.
It’s not clear when the ruling will be overturned and so it is possible that online gambling may have to remain restricted to Gibraltar. However, the ruling also brings into question whether the UK gambling market will remain the most important in the world. It’s possible that the situation will change so that Gibraltar remains the most important market, with the UK relegated to the number two spot. If this were to happen, the UK’s online gambling industry could lose its legal monopoly.
