A recent investigation by the UK Gaming Commission reveals that gambling patterns have shifted during the recent health crisis. Mobile gaming has experienced a decrease in activity, while electronic sports are gaining traction.
The research involved a poll of 8,000 adults conducted in 2020, meaning many of the observed trends were influenced by confinement measures and social distancing guidelines.
Mobile devices remain the most common platform for gambling, with 50.3% of respondents indicating they engage in gambling activities on their phones. However, this figure mirrors the 2019 data, marking an end to a period of rapid growth in mobile wagering.
The most popular mobile gambling category is wagering on football, with 62.8% of gamblers stating they use their smartphones for this purpose. Mobile gambling for lotteries is the least favored, with only 43.5% of individuals using their phones to participate in the national lottery and 34.2% utilizing their phones for charity lotteries.
Betting on live sporting events is highly popular on mobile devices, with 74% of individuals who wager on live sports placing their bets on their phones.
Individuals aged 18-24 and 25-34 are the most frequent mobile gamblers, while only 14.2% of people aged 65 and over gamble on their phones.
Portable computers emerged as the leading method for wagering in 2020, with 40.1% of bettors utilizing them for gaming. Non-athletic real-event wagering was particularly widespread on portable computers, with roughly half of bettors employing them for this type of betting.
Although portable computer gambling was similarly prevalent across all age categories, it was most frequent among individuals aged 18-24.
Concurrently, desktop computers reversed their downward trend, with 26.1% of players using them for gambling. Again, non-athletic events witnessed the highest level of desktop computer usage.
Those aged 65 and older were most likely to use desktop computers for betting.
Tablet gambling expanded to 17.7%, but remained below 2018 levels, with live betting being particularly popular. Meanwhile, 3.3% of players used intelligent televisions for betting, with wagers on sporting events other than football and racing being especially prone to be placed on intelligent televisions.
The COVID-19 pandemic also resulted in alterations in where individuals placed their wagers. Of those surveyed, 96% stated they placed bets from their residences.
Conversely, betting while commuting (as working from home became the standard) decreased from 12% to 10%, and betting at work declined from 15% to 11%.
Despite the fact that spectators were restricted or prohibited entirely at sporting events for a significant portion of the year, betting at stadiums and racetracks increased from 4% to 5%, and betting at pubs also rose from 7% to 8%.
In general, 19.8% of respondents gambled outside of their homes.
The typical quantity of wagering accounts maintained by each patron has modestly climbed, moving from 3.0 to 3.2. Although 42.6% of patrons maintain only one account, 24.0% have two, and 4.5% have ten or more accounts. Younger participants are more prone to having multiple accounts, with 6.8% of those aged 18-24 possessing ten or more accounts.
Those who engage in gambling seven or more times in the past week are also more likely to have a substantial number of accounts, with only 12.9% of this group holding a single account.
Esports wagering has witnessed a considerable increase year-over-year, rising from 6% of participants who stated they had wagered on esports at some point in their lives in 2019 to 9.2% in 2020.
Males are particularly likely to wager on esports, with 14% of gamblers doing so. Moreover, 7.1% of respondents stated they had wagered on esports with real money, while 7.2% stated they had wagered on skins.
The survey additionally discovered that 30.3% of gamblers had placed live wagers on sporting events in the past week, while another 30.0% had done so in the preceding three weeks, totaling 60.3% of gamblers who had placed live wagers in the past four weeks.
Younger participants are particularly likely to place live wagers, with 45% of those aged 25-34 having placed live wagers in the past seven days.
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