The UK online casino market is a rapidly growing industry. The number of players in Internet clubs, sportsbooks, bingo sites, etc. is increasing every day as the convenience factors and wide selection of betting products are too good to pass up.
UK online clubs are also one of the safest places to gamble on the Internet, as the industry is well supported and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission. This means you can expect immediate and secure deposits, as well as timely payments of your winnings. It is also perfectly legal to place bets online on any UKGC licensed website as long as you are at least 18 years old.
What’s more, casino websites UK often offer over 1000 games at your disposal, tons of bonuses and promotions, quick access to customer support and a variety of payment options. Do you want to get started?
Mobile Online Casinos UK
The popularity of mobile clubs is constantly growing, as more and more players choose to play on the go due to their simplicity and ease of use. More than 80% of UK residents own smartphones, and more than 50% of Internet betting in the UK is done via mobile phones or tablets – primarily via iPhone and Samsung Galaxy.
As super-speed 5G technology began to spread across the country, players can access their favourite online UK slots or other gambling games with little to no interruption caused by connection issues. As such, we expect the mobile gambling trend to grow even more in the near and distant future.
Internet clubs are quick to adapt to changing trends and thus place players through dedicated iOS and Android mobile apps on mobile-optimized betting websites. What’s more, game developers design their games with a mobile focus in mind, which means you have hundreds of mobile slots online UK and table games at your disposal.
The top 10 UK casino sites should offer well-optimized websites with no lag issues on modern devices, a clear navigation structure, and quick access to customer support and payment options.
History of Gambling in the United Kingdom
Casinos, sports and bingo punting are an important part of British culture, as evidenced by the countless sponsorship of famous sports teams, frequent television advertisements and general marketing across the country. Punting in the United Kingdom has a long and complex history, with laws dating back to the 16th century. In 1541, the Illegal Gaming Act made all types of gambling illegal, but only on paper, as the law was practically not enforced.
The general trend over the years and centuries of punting in the UK shows that the government is trying to minimize and over-regulate gambling, with the public holding back and showing resistance through “clandestine” betting shops, but the rules are not followed.
Numerous gambling games in 1710, 1728, 1738, 1739 and 1744 attempted additional market regulation, but the results were mixed. The Gambling Act of 1845 marks a milestone in the history of punting in the UK, as it legalized gambling and made cheating illegal.
Over time, the popularity of the gambling establishment continued to grow, and in the 1800s, through several bills, additional rules were introduced.
Eventually, as the government saw that punting would not disappear and instead gained more popularity, they legalized private betting shops through the Betting and Gambling Act of 1960. Today punting is more popular than ever in the country and UK online gambling accounts for 35% of all gambling activity on British territory. The future for British online casino and UK gamers is great, but land-based clubs and bookmakers like Ladbrokes are also very popular.
If you prefer land-based clubs to online punting, the most popular in the UK are Grosvenor Casino, Hippodrome Casino in London, Genting Casino and Rainbow Casino chain. There is no shortage of physical gambling clubs in the UK, that’s for sure, and in both the online and offline markets booming, there doesn’t seem to be any stop signals in sight.
Are UK Online Casinos Legal?
Online casino games UK are legal in many forms, with a minimum age of 18. The first legal gambling law in recent history was passed in the early 60s, allowing bingo halls and sports betting shops to be used, but with some restrictions. Shortly thereafter, in 1968, we saw the legalization of commercial land-based gambling clubs offering table games. Leading up to our century, British gambling laws were not ready to catch up with the online gambling boom from the 2000s onward, and therefore, the legality of UK gamers placing online betting was largely controversial.
However, the 2005 Gambling Act clarified the situation and made it so that all UK clubs operating in the UK must obtain a license from the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC). UKGC is the only authoritative body responsible for licensing and regulating new casinos UK. It is an independent government agency funded by the State Department of Sports, Media, and Culture. This act has brought order to punting in the UK and has played a large role in stabilizing the industry while eliminating the risks of underage gambling and money laundering
In 2014, the Gambling Act was amended to add another rule that offshore online clubs offering punting services to UK customers must also obtain a UKGC license. The exception to this rule is the “gambling whitelist jurisdictions”, which are licensing bodies approved by the UKGC as a safe and legal place to gamble on the Internet. Currently, the whitelisted jurisdictions are Alderney, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Tasmania and Antigua and Barbuda, which means you can place bets at online clubs licensed by that jurisdiction.
Best Online Casino UK Games for Players
The UK has a big influence on gaming trends around the world, but it is also prone to trends infiltrating their culture from the “outside world”. Slot machines, often referred to as fruit machines, are central to most UK Internet clubs and have good reasons to be downloaded. They are luxurious, dynamic and exciting. Naturally, they can generate big wins as well. Video slots and progressive jackpots are the most popular among UK gamers, but classic slots are still the mainstay despite outdated graphics and game mechanics.
Pontoon was the blackjack version among UK gamers in the past with a single deck of 52 cards, but nowadays, players are spending their playing time on the dozens of affordable board game options offered by modern game providers.
Any best online casino UK has become popular due to the following features:
- Availability
To participate in an online game, you do not need to adjust to the opening hours of the establishment or think about the dress code. Internet platforms accept gamblers 24/7. In addition, you can play anywhere: on the way to work, during a vacation trip or at home on your favourite couch.
- Assortment of entertainments
If a land-based institution can offer a gambler up to hundreds of machines and dozens of card tables, then an online club wins significantly in terms of content.
Users of virtual platforms have access to:
- fruit and story slots;
- skill games;
- arcades;
- card and desktop emulators;
- a live content and much more.
These can be traditional solutions and their various variations (for example, a combination of roulette and dice or three-hand hold’em).
New online casino UK play has a number of unique technical features:
- Simultaneous play. Users can run multiple sessions simultaneously in different browser windows or on two monitors.
- Free session. None of the land-based establishments allows customers to play for free, while in an Internet club you can “try” dozens and hundreds of slots in a free money casino UK without the slightest risk of losing money or having to register.
- Game time. There are no clocks in any physical hall of machines. This is done on purpose to make customers lose track of time. The Internet industry takes a different approach: a number of manufacturers release a line of slots with a clock icon. This is necessary so that the user can control the duration of the session and feel more relaxed.
- Customization. Any Internet content can be customized to suit your own preferences, from bet limits to the colour of the cloth on the card table.
- Rules. Gamblers have access to detailed instructions, plus slots are often equipped with a hint line at the bottom of the playing field.
- Bid history. The user can view the technical parameters of the machine and detailed statistics for previous draws.
- Picture quality. Thanks to innovative HTML5 technologies, the visual design of new online slots UK remains at its best, regardless of the screen resolution or Internet speed.
- Bonuses and Jackpots
Only in online clubs gamblers can play for real money without personal investments and even enjoy a no account casino UK. No land-based establishment offers welcome bonuses to its customers, while the virtual sector gives its users such UK casino rewards as:
- money for registration;
- prizes for the first replenishment of the deposit;
- rewards for participating in a particular game;
- personalized bonuses (seasonal promotions, rewards, timed to a specific date);
- cash incentives for activity on the site;
- bonuses for attracting new gamblers.
The jackpot system should be considered separately. A fixed cash prize is set in casino slots, plus you can try your luck in drawing progressive jackpots (the amount is accumulated from burned out bets in several machines of the network at once and is played randomly at any time). Additionally, there is a system of awards for participation and victory in tournament competitions.
- Internet casino security
In the physical business, protection systems are “tied” only to the human factor: video surveillance, security service, checkpoints. Online gambling security is based on the principle of machine learning and requires only initial manual configuration. All further work is automated and excludes illegal actions from both users and site personnel.
The system is designed to solve the following tasks:
- protection against fraud and cyber-attacks;
- preventing logins using malicious software;
- storage of user and commercial information;
- preventing theft of intellectual property;
- combating money laundering;
- blocking users with a negative reputation;
- control of players’ actions;
- optimization of work with the VIP-segment;
- assessment of gamblers’ solvency and credit history check;
- recording anomalous behaviour (logging into an account from multiple devices, changing geolocation parameters, attempts to exceed limits);
- control of the work of the platform personnel.
- Multicurrency
A physical gambling club can accept up to three to five types of fiat currencies (depending on the region where the services are distributed). Internet clubs are not limited in this regard and are ready to offer customers the most popular and demanded services without geographic reference:
- bank transfers;
- electronic systems and wallets;
- lending on the platform;
- replenishment of the deposit through mobile services, more.
Their promising area is cryptocurrency transactions. Specialists at Gambling Capital predict a tremendous growth in the popularity of bitcoin: by the end of 2022, every second Internet institution in the world will accept electronic money.
Summing up, our advice is: enjoy your favourite online online casino UK or a new mobile casino UK, the atmosphere of excitement and risk, and have a full blast winning real money!
