swetswise.com
Luke 
November 7, 2016
When you’re an online casino operator, you pretty much need to rely on two groups of people in order to obtain a consistent income. One of them is, of course, the “whales” – the hardcore gamblers that play for hours every day and pay you hundreds in their attempts to win the jackpot. I guess the less politically correct term to describe those people would be “addicted”, but that’s a discussion better saved for another day. The other group, of course, is newcomers – those who come in, put 20 quid into their account, spin a slot a couple of times, and then never play again. You’d be surprised to learn that the latter group brings in just as many profits as the former – why do you think practically every casino offers so many huge first deposit bonuses, but most offer absolutely no second, third or fourth deposit bonuses? They know that most people need that extra push to invest the first time, and if they like it they’re going to remain loyal to the casino for the foreseeable future even without bonuses.
But the government has had enough of this, and apparently, they’re looking to cut the income of new gamblers dramatically by placing an outright ban on gambling advertisement. If this bill goes into effect, as it probably will, it’s going to prohibit any sort of advertisement online or on TV, except in adult-oriented channels (for example, if you go to a casino site, you’ll probably see ads and banners for online casinos, but you’re not going to see them on, say, Facebook). This, obviously, isn’t good news for the casino industry, as advertisement are their main source of attracting new players – without it, they lose a significant percentage of their revenue, which could be catastrophic for the entire UK industry (which is pretty much the market leader in Europe). Last year, the gambling industry grossed a revenue of £7.1 billion in the UK, and while the numbers have only been increasing as online gambling’s popularity has risen, I can guarantee you that, if this ban gets put into place, the gross revenue will decrease dramatically.
So, why is this ban put into place? One would assume that it’s to gambling the aforementioned gambling addiction… Except that doesn’t appear to be the case at all. According to a source for the Telegraph, “as it stands, betting sites can basically be advertising to children all weekend,” which leads me to believe that the reason why one of the most profitable UK industries right now is essentially being skinned alive is because of this need to “think of the children”… Except that reasoning is complete and utter nonsense, because children are not permitted by law to gamble. So what if online casinos advertise to kids 24/7? None of them is ever going to allow them to even sign up, let alone play! Do you know exactly how many incidents there have been in the UK in which a child got addicted to gambling? Zero. There have been zero such cases, because children do not gamble. So neutering the entire industry and dramatically cutting its profits for what is essentially a non-issue born out of fear-mongering and paranoia seems like a terrible idea, but what do I know.
