Praesepe and British Amusement Catering Trade Association executive Nick
Harding wrote an article this past weekend that appeared in Times Online,
essentially giving his opinion about the current state of the gambling market in
the United Kingdom.
According to Harding, the UK gambling industry is in dire straits,
with the threat of tens of thousands of people losing their jobs if the
government does not stop its dithering and make some important policy decisions
very soon.
Land based operations, wrote Harding have been "brought to their knees" since
the introduction of the UK Gambling Act which introduced tough regulations. In
addition, the balance has been tipped because unregulated online casinos are out
of the reach of these new laws. These casinos can afford to offer better
incentives to their players because they are not paying tax to the government,
leading more and more UK gamblers to these sites, at the expense of land based
and regulated online casinos.
According to Harding, the facts on the ground are harsh as it is, and are
expected to get worse if nothing is done very soon: 30,000 more jobs may be lost
in a short space of time; seaside arcade revenues dropped 21% in the past year;
136 gambling establishments closed since June, 2007; 850 jobs have already been
lost and income is down by nearly 110 million GBP since last year.
"Since 2005, when the Gambling Act was supposed to usher in a new era for our
industry, manufacturing output in this sector has decreased by 55 percent and
more than 25 percent of the manufacturing workforce have lost their jobs," wrote
Harding.
Harding suggested that the government adopt the immediate policy of adjusting
stakes on popular gaming machines to a maximum of 1 GBP, for a capped prize of
70 GBP. "If we can achieve this, without any political dithering, then I am
certain there will be significant effect on virtually every sector of this
industry," he concluded.
