UK gambling TV ad spend continues to rise

The amount of money spent on gambling-related TV advertising in the UK looks set to rise again this year after research carried out by media analysts Nielsen showed almost ?120m was invested in 2015.

The study, which was conducted for UK newspaper The Guardian, found operators offering either one or a mix of sportsbook, bingo, casino and poker products spent ?119m on TV advertising last year, up from ?103m across the previous 12 months.

Although most products weren’t spilt between online and offline, Nielsen did strip out figures for online casino, which showed ?30.1m was spent last year, up 53% on the ?19.7m in 2014.

And TV ad spend this year looks set to outstrip the 2015 figure, with a total of ?51.4m spent during the first five months of the year.

Should that level of spend continue for the rest of the year, operators will fork out ?123.6m on ads, however, that could well be a conservative figure with operators highly visible around the Euro 2016 tournament in June and July.

With its ability to be screened during daytime hours, bingo continues to be the highest spending vertical when it comes to TV advertising with total spend up 17% to ?56.9m in 2015, although is currently on track to reach a lower figure of ?50.8m this year.

However, that is still significantly more than online casino and sportsbook, with the latter recording spend of ?26.7m in 2015 but is on course to post ?32.3m this year, with the same Euro 2016 caveat to be applied.

The increase in TV advertising spend, coupled with recent Gambling Commission figures which showed a British gambling industry in rude health, has led to calls for politicians to take a tougher stance on gambling regulation.