The end of October 2023 has seen the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) publish more data on the country’s gambling industry.
The UK gambling regulatory body revealed that the data, which covers both in-person and online gambling, was sourced from local high-street Licensed Betting Operators (LBOs) and reflects the period from March 2020 to September 2023. The watchdog further noted that a comparison should not be made with the industry statistics dataset because it may include bonuses and free bets and does not involve data from all operators that are available across the territory of the country.
The latest release provides a comparison between the second quarter of the financial 2022/2023 year and the second quarter of the financial 2023/2024 year, taking into account the changes that have taken place in the market over the previously mentioned comparative periods.
In its latest report, the UKGC shared that the dataset includes updated data for the entire period to September 2023, including slots sessions that took place in the country so far this year.
Online GGY in Q2 2023 Increases in Comparison to the Same Quarter a Year Earlier
The first piece of data provided by the UK Gambling Commission in its market impact data report was the online gross gambling yield (GGY). According to the regulatory body’s report, it totalled £1.2 billion in the second quarter of the financial 2023, with the figure reflecting a 0.6% increase in comparison to the results reached in the second quarter of the previous year.
On the other hand, the overall number of bets and/or spins rose by 10% year-on-year, and the average number of accounts that were active every month rose by 7%.
The latest market impact report of the UKGC showed there was a 0.4% decline in the gross gaming yield from licensed betting operators on UK high streets, which in the second quarter of 2023 accounted for a total of £539 million. The overall number of bets and spins declined by 1%, reaching 3.1 billion.
A decline was also registered in the gross gaming yield from real event betting. There was a 5% reduction in the GGY, which fell to £428 million, while the number of total bets fell by 1%. Slots games saw an 8% increase in their gross gaming yield from the GGY announced in the second fiscal quarter of 2022/2023, with them reaching a total of £589 million in Q2 2023. In addition, there was an 11% increase in the number of spins on slot machines. The same increase was registered in the number of active monthly users.
The total number of bets placed by British gamblers on slots reached 6.7 billion, compared to 9 million bets placed on virtual betting options.
The length of British customers’ online slot sessions was reduced to 17 minutes on average, with only 7% of the sessions lasting more than an hour.
- Author
Daniel Williams
