The UK Continues to Bet on Online Casinos
Gambling People
betting online and on land. Since internet gambling has been made legal
in the UK, even newsstands are full of exquisite gambling magazines and
last month, according to a report by Business Week Online, a British
national daily newspaper devoted entirely to games of chance has
launched last month.
There are now cable and satellite channels that air nothing but casino
and poker games. Only two years after the law permitted gambling,
Britain has opened the world's first casino college, where students and
croupier trainees learn the trade. It will take some time make a Las
Vegas in Britain but they are surely on their way to seeing this
happen.
Britain has now permitted online gambling, wagering and betting firms
to allow customers to wager electronically on everything from horses
and soccer matches to the winners of reality TV shows and the Oscars.
Such legal operations are run by the older fogies such as Ladbrokes and
William Hill, as well as a set of newcomers to the gambling scene such
as Sportingbet, UKbetting, and Betfair. These companies pay the UK
government 15% of their gross profits in tax. Tax proceeds have gone
over $2.5 billion for the UK Treasury since 2004.
The Facts about UK Gambling:
· Bookmaking has been legal in Britain for nearly 50 years.
· Brits wagered $40 billion in 2005 alone, according to Christiansen
Capital Advisors, a New York-based consultancy which researches the
gambling industry.
· UK Parliament has enacted new legislation that will open up the
online market, starting in 2007, to traditional casino games such as
poker, blackjack, and roulette.
· Britain is the first country in the developed world to legalize
online gambling.
· The UK government hopes that by becoming the first country in the
developed world to legalize online gambling, it can lure offshore
outfits to locate on British soil and therefore generate even more
revenue to the benefit of the country.
· "Britain is already the global leader in betting and now it looks
likely to become the world capital of Internet gambling as well," says
Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams, director of the betting research
unit at Nottingham Trent University.