Although it’s often said that Australians would bet on "two flies crawling up a wall", the same can be said for British punters.
UK Gambling is regulated by the Gambling Commission under the Gambling Act 2005. This Act of Parliament controls both offline and online betting of all descriptions.
Gambling on UK Sports
Soccer is undoubtedly the most popular sport in the UK with millions of fans tuning in to watch their favourite team play each week.
The Premier League was established in 1992 to regulate and manage UK soccer teams. At the present time, 20 professional teams are involved in the Premier League, with thousands of minor league teams playing in various parts of the country.
Although soccer is a relatively low-scoring game, the hundreds of millions of followers across the world attest to the fact that soccer is the ultimate test of skill and acuity with a football.
The most successful team in Premier League history is Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson’s side has won an amazing 11 premiership titles, never finishing out of the top 3 teams since the Premier League was launched in 1992.
Horse racing is the cornerstone of UK gambling. The regulatory body for British horse racing is the British Horseracing Authority.
Two forms of horse racing are popular on UK race tracks; obstacle-free distance racing known as flat racing and National Hunt racing, which involves racing over hurdles and fences.
Online sports betting in Britain is a multi-million dollar industry. Famous UK gambling houses like Ladbrokes have now established an online presence alongside many other well-known online gambling websites.
Bingo
Bingo has traditionally been known as one of the most popular forms of gambling in the UK. Generally played in community bingo halls across the country, bingo is as much an opportunity for a local social gathering as it is a place to win a few pounds.
On a larger scale, bingo games are proliferating on the Internet. After all, bingo is one of the easiest forms of gaming available. With few rules or regulations, even an absolute beginner can pick up the game in a matter of minutes.
All that is required is a couple of bingo cards, which contain a random series of numbers, usually from 1 to 100. The bingo master is responsible for the "bingo cage", which in traditional offline games is a revolving container housing balls numbered from 1 to 100.
The bingo master extracts one ball at a time from the cage and calls the number. Players then cross that number off their bingo card. Depending on the rules of the game, the first player to either cross off a row or column of numbers, or all the numbers on the card wins the game.
Playing bingo online follows the same basic rules, however it is made more exciting because of the increased speed of the game and the number of bingo cards a player can hold at the same time.
The National Lottery
If horse racing is the cornerstone of UK gambling, then the National Lottery is the foundations on which it is built.
Picking up a lottery ticket from the corner store while picking up a loaf of bread is as much a part of British culture as bangers and mash!
The National Lottery Commission regulates a variety of lotteries, including Lotto, Thunderball and Dream Number.
The Lotto draw is conducted on Wednesday and Saturday each week. Six numbers are drawn at random together with an additional "bonus ball". Players who have 3 or more of the numbers (excluding the "bonus ball") on their Lotto ticket win. The "bonus ball" is only used when a player has 5 or more of the selected numbers.
National Lottery games are becoming increasingly popular online. Once you have registered, you can choose from two methods of playing. A subscription requires that you complete a bank debit/credit authority and then your ticket is automatically submitted.
The second choice is a "loaded account", where you deposit funds into your online account and play when you like.