The UK Gambling Industry has been on the charge for many years, and it’s still rapidly growing today. But this is no surprise. The industry provide gamblers with several ways to win, as well as different odds and potential winning.
Gambling companies have been among the winners of the pandemic as people have looked for a distraction from the boredom of repeated lockdowns. While there has been pressure from the cancellation of sporting events and closure of casinos and betting shops, this has been tempered by consumers flocking to online and mobile betting.
Online gambling was already on the rise pre-pandemic as the smartphone era has, effectively, put a casino in everyone’s pockets. But growth has been turbocharged over the past year, and this has been reflected in the momentum of many UK gambling stocks. For example, 888 Holdings’ (888) share price is almost 150 per cent higher than at the start of last year.
And for Ladbrokes-owner Entain (ENT) – formerly known as GVC – profits from its online businesses jumped by 50 per cent to £804m.
Sports betting and app development
One of the biggest steps forward in the world of mobile devices was the development of mobile apps. These allowed customers to easily access a wide range of services on their mobile device, with just the ability to connect to the internet as a requirement.
The introduction and rapid increase in quality of mobile apps lead to a huge number of consumers moving away from traditional brick and mortar sports betting and towards using an online portal thereby increasing the number of online players exponentially.
Sports betting apps have opened up new markets to a huge number of players over the last few years. One of the main ones is in-play betting. This particular type of betting was never hugely popular at brick and mortar sportsbooks, purely because the logistics of it made it difficult to carry out on a large scale.
Sports betting apps remove this issue and as such in-play betting has become one of the most popular methods of placing a wager on a sports game. Developments like games being shown inside the app means that inplay betting is easier and more interactive than ever before. This only helps to continue the rise of sports betting in the modern world.
