A Great British History of Gambling
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Gambling in Britain is a multi-billion-pound industry. It includes all revenue generated from sports betting, casinos, bingo, lottery and all remote gambling. Gambling has a storied past, both embraced and reviled through different historical periods. Punters have been both encouraged and banned from playing.
Henry the eighth banned gambling because he thought it would distract his soldiers from their duties. Henry's daughter Queen Elizabeth was a prolific gambler and she created the first lottery in Britain. Lotteries were used to fund the Virginia company's expeditions and to further England's reach around the world. Today, lotterying is more associated with horse racing. It was favoured by monarchs since King Charles the second.
The Victorians were concerned about gambling and lottery frauds. They passed two laws effectively banning gambling. However, the wealthy aristocracy were still free to gamble. A Great British History of Gambling is published by Simon & Schuster.
The gambling prohibition of the Victorian era encouraged gambling to move underground. In the early 1900s, a law was passed to crack down on underground betting rings. It didn't work, so betting shops were legalised in the 1960s to reduce crime and raise tax revenues.
The first big event of the 1990s was the formation of a national lottery. Today 70% of adults regularly play the lottery and the Gambling Act of 2005 changed the regulations surrounding the industry. Remote gambling offers considerable contributions to the gambling industry and more so for the players. Roger consolidates information about many different UK-based gambling sites to help consumers choose the right platform for them.
The gambling industry has proven lucrative for the government in terms of tax revenue. In recent years, there have been more forays into live gambling games online as a hybrid between online gambling and traditional gambling.
Gambling is deeply embedded in British culture and will not change.
