SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
New research by www.BettingTips4You.com has revealed that the average Briton with a dormant gambling account has £14.96 left in their account.
The research showed that a third of Britons have a gambling account, with 22% of those admitting that they have almost £15 unused in their account, which amounts to £53.58 million of unused money.
This was part of an ongoing study into Britons and their finances. 2,408 Britons, aged 18 and over, were quizzed about what they do with their winnings, which forms of gambling they had undertaken, how often they gamble and why they leave money in dormant accounts.
When asked about the use of any winnings, the most common responses were ‘I treated myself’ (32%), ‘I used the winnings to keep playing’ (30%) and ‘I saved it’ (18%).
The most popular forms of gambling undertaken were ‘the lottery’ (78%), ‘scratch cards’ (51%) and ‘gambling sites and apps’ (32%), while just 11% had never partaken in any form of gambling.
Those with accounts on gambling sites and apps were asked how often they used them, to which 22% stated that it had been dormant ‘for a year or more’. All these respondents were then asked how much money they had in their dormant accounts, to which the average answer was £14.96.
With the Office of National Statistics stating there are currently 50,909,098 Britons aged 18 and over in the UK, this equates to 3,584,000 Britons with unused money, for a total of £53,580,800.
When those with a dormant account were asked ‘why do you not use it?’, the top five responses were ‘I’d forgotten it was there’ (22%), ‘I’m saving it for a bet that takes my interest’ (19%), ‘I’m unable to extract it from my account’ (17%), ‘I thought I’d used all the money in my account’ (13%) and ‘I forgot my account log in details’ (12%).
John Pentin, Editor of BettingTips4You, commented: “It’s one thing to leave money in your account to use on another day, but to forget that it’s there and not use it is another completely. You might as well be throwing money into the trash. Whilst £15 may not seem like a large amount of money, and there’s no guarantee that you’re going to win anything from it, people have won big with a lot less.”
