Downturn will test UK gambling firms - International Herald Tribune

[I Heart Gambling Online]

LONDON: British bookmakers may be more vulnerable to recession than in the past because online poker and computerized gambling machines attract fewer habitual gamblers than horse and greyhound racing do.

The industry has changed greatly since the recession of the early 1990s, so the current economic downturn will provide the first test of whether the new revenue streams will prove resilient.

Will the growing proportion of middle-income gamblers continue to bet when household budgets are stretched and discretionary spending is limited?

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