A report by the Gambling Commission found that the number of people using devices like smartphones and tablets for their online gambling has increased by 10 per cent to 43 per cent since last year.
The report shows no increase in online gambling itself, suggesting a migration to mobile devices rather than players taking up gambling on them.
Gambling on gaming machines in bookmakers has remained stable at 1.5 per cent compared with last year.
The report shows that 68 per cent of 18-24 year olds have been prompted to gamble by adverts and posts on social media.
It shows that 23 per cent of players didn’t read the terms and conditions of the games. This caused concern for the commission as the report shows a number of aspects of the game that players felt were unfair. These included having to wager a certain amount before they could claim winnings, unfair limits on qualifying for a free bet and it being too difficult to win.
Forty-eight per cent of respondents have gambled in the past four weeks (a three per cent increase on 2015), this figure drops to 33 per cent when those that have only played the National Lottery are excluded.
Less than one per cent of those that have gambled in the past 12 months identified as problem gamblers (compared to 0.5 per cent in 2015), with 5.5 per cent identifying themselves as at-risk gamblers.
James Green, programme director, said: “This report paints an important picture of how consumers in Britain choose to gamble – identifying emerging trends and potential risks to the public. We are also now able to provide a more detailed snapshot of online behaviours, which featured for the first time last year.
“Effective protections come from strong evidence. Our research puts us in a powerful position to better understand the needs of gambling consumers.”
Seventy-eight per cent of respondents felt there are too many opportunities to gamble nowadays, whilst 69 per cent felt gambling is dangerous for family life. However, 67 per cent of respondent’s think people should have the right to gamble whenever they want.
