A recession would affect the remote gambling sector as it is part of the leisure industry and people do not have to gamble, it has been suggested.

However, people who gamble online and via their mobile phones – at online bingo sites for example – generally only place small stakes so there will be a limited impact.

These are the opinions of Brian Wright, director of business at the Remote Gambling Association, the organisation that looks after the firms operating gaming services for web, phone and TV users.

“A lot of companies are publicly listed so they get directly affected by shares and the offsets of that,” he remarked.

Despite potentially limited effects, the remote gambling sector is not recession proof, he added.

The Gambling Commission published a study last month that suggested remote gamblers are generally aged between 18 and 44 years old.