UKGC releases gambling behaviour insights

Shirley Pulis Xerxen November 1, 2023

The UK Gambling Commission has recently released additional data offering valuable insights into the gambling industry in Great Britain.

The complete dataset, derived from various operators, covers the period from March 2020 to September 2023, encompassing both online and in-person gambling, particularly focusing on Licensed Betting Operators (LBOs) situated in the high streets of Britain.

In this latest release, the Commission presents a comparative analysis of Q2 (Quarter 2, July to September) of the financial year 2022 to 2023 and Q2 of 2023 to 2024, providing insights into how the market has evolved over the course of a year.

It’s important to note that this dataset should not be directly compared with the industry statistics dataset, as the former might include factors like free bets and bonuses, and it does not comprise data from all operators.

The dataset includes revised data on slots sessions, and the UKGC recommends referring to the accompanying Excel data document for the most updated information covering the entire period.

Key findings: gambling behaviour insights

Key findings from the latest operator data are as follows:

In Q2 (July to September), the online Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) amounted to £1.2 billion, marking a 0.6 percent increase compared to the same period in the previous year. The overall number of total bets and/or spins surged by 10 percent Year-on-Year (YoY), with the average monthly active accounts increasing by 7 percent.

GGY from real event betting experienced a YoY decrease of 5 percent, reaching £428 million. The total bets for this vertical saw a 1 percent decrease, while the number of active players decreased by 0.2 percent.

Slots GGY exhibited robust growth, increasing by 8 percent YoY to £589 million. The number of spins also surged by 11 percent, and the average monthly active accounts in Q2 saw an 11 percent increase, reaching 3.8 million per month.

Notably, the number of online slots sessions lasting over an hour increased by 4 percent YoY, reaching 9.3 million. However, the average session length decreased to 17 minutes, accounting for approximately 7 percent of all sessions lasting more than one hour.

LBO GGY, on the other hand, experienced a marginal decline of 0.4 percent, reaching nearly £539 million in Q2 of 2023 to 2024, compared to the same quarter in the previous year. The total number of bets and spins also declined by 1 percent, totalling 3.1 billion.

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