Horseracing is a £3bn industry on which £11bn is wagered annually, with bookies making a £1bn profit each year. Football and other sports are also increasingly attracting punters.
Then there's the explosion of interest in poker - again driven by the web. A card game previously associated with sharks and villains has become a ubiquitous presence on our late-night TV screens and on Tube station hoardings.
The boom led to companies such as PartyGaming floating on the London Stock Exchange in 2005 for an eye-watering £4.64bn, a figure even the venture capitalists who drove the dotcom boom of the late '90s would blush at. High-street bookmakers have smartened up their shops. And Chancellor Gordon Brown's decision to abolish betting tax in 2002 also made betting a more attractive proposition financially.
The big traditional bookies have embraced the internet, setting up tax-efficient offshore operations to service global customer bases. And pureplay internet gambling firms such as Sportingbet quickly established £1bn-plus turnovers on the back of the online betting boom. Bingo and casino operators including Littlewoods and Gala have also built significant online arms to their businesses.
But, for such a big industry, gambling has had a low profile in the advertising community, because of the regulatory and ethical issues it brings with it. However, the Government's decision to allow gambling firms to advertise on broadcast channels from September opens up a potentially lucrative new revenue stream for media owners and agencies (page 20).
There is a downside to this of course. Organisations such as GamCare worry that the high profile of betting is breeding a nation of gamblaholics. And recent regulatory crackdowns by US authorities on internet gambling were setbacks for PartyGaming and Sportingbet.
Up to now, gambling ads have not been allowed on television or radio. Obviously, there is still a need for a responsible approach to advertising, but media agencies and owners will be licking their lips in anticipation of fresh new revenues entering the advertising market looking to establish relatively unexposed brands with punters.
- Steve Barrett is editor of Media Week, steve.barrett@haymarket.com.