Statistics and research release
Market overview - operator data to March 2024 (published April 2024)
An overview of the data provided by gambling operators up to January 2023.
Summary
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Operator Data
The Gambling Commission has published data to March 2024, with the dataset collected since March 2020 showing how gambling behaviour has changed over the period.
This release compares Quarter 4 (January to March) of financial year 2023 to 2024, with Quarter 4 of 2022 to 2023, looking at how the market has changed in comparative periods over a year.
This release covers data from the largest online operators and Licensed Betting Operator (LBOs) found on Britain’s high streets.
Note: We encourage you to always refer to the most recent excel data document which contains updated data for the entire period. This can be found on Gambling business data on gambling to March 2024 (published April 2024)
Online gambling
The online gambling data, collected from the largest online operators, covers the months March 2020 through to March 2024.
Comparison should not be made with the industry statistics dataset, as the data set reported here may include free bets and bonuses and does not cover all operators.
Latest data1, from January to March 2024, shows total online Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) increased 5 percent, compared to the same period last year, to £1.4 billion. The increase was mostly driven by slots which increased by 11 percent year-on-year.
Both the overall number of total bets and/or spins and the number of average monthly active accounts2 saw increases during the quarter, seeing increases of 10 percent and 2 percent respectively, compared to the previous year. Totalling over 24 billion, this is the highest recorded overall number of bets and/or spins for a quarter since data collection began.
Online real event betting
Online real event betting GGY increased by 2 percent year-on-year for quarter 4, to £565 million. The number of bets decreased 6 percent, while the average monthly active accounts increased 1 percent compared to the same quarter last year.
Online slots
Slots GGY increased 11 percent to £614 million year-on-year for this reporting period. The number of spins increased 12 percent in the quarter to a new peak of 22 billion, while the number of average monthly active accounts increased 7 percent to 4.2 million. The GGY per active player for online slots therefore increased by 3 percent year-on-year.
Online safer gambling indicators
The number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour increased by 2 percent year-on-year to 9.5 million. The number of total sessions increased by 7 percent in the equivalent time period, recording the highest number of total sessions in a quarter. Approximately 6 percent of all sessions lasted in excess of one hour during the quarter, the lowest percentage recorded in this dataset. The average session length decreased to 17 minutes when compared to 18 minutes in Quarter 4 2022 to 2023.
The total number of customer interactions in Quarter 4 increased by 2 percent to 3 million compared to the same period last year, with the majority remaining automated in nature.3 The number of direct interactions undertaken by operators in this dataset has decreased by 4 percent year-on-year.
Offline Betting
The Commission has collected data from the largest Licensed Betting Operators (LBOs) for the months of March (pre-lockdown) and June 2020 through to March 2024.
GGY reported for Quarter 4 (January to March) decreased by 3 percent from Quarter 4 last year to £568 million, while the number of total bets and spins decreased 1 percent to 3.3 billion.
Over the Counter (OTC)
The number of bets placed over the counter decreased 1 percent in the quarter compared to the same period last year to 138 million, while GGY also decreased by 9 percent to £153 million. This represented the lowest recorded over the counter GGY for LBO’s since they have been fully opened for an entire quarter.
Self-Service Betting Terminals (SSBT)
The number of bets placed on SSBTs increased by 8 percent year-on-year to 40 million. GGY increased year-on-year by 1 percent to £126 million, signifying the highest recorded quarter since data collection began for both metrics.
Machines sessions
Machines GGY decreased by 1 percent in Quarter 4 year-on-year to £289 million, with average spend per session decreased 1 percent year-on-year to £12.16. The average number of spins per machines session decreased by 1 spin this quarter to 130 spins.
Offline safer gambling indicators
The proportion of total machines sessions lasting more than one hour fell to 2 percent, down from 3 percent during the same period last year.
Notes
1We are currently investigating the categorisation of certain products. This may result in the changing of some data between verticals, however this should have no impact on the overall totals.
2This is the total number of times activity has taken place across all verticals; therefore, an active account may be counted more than once if they participate in more than one vertical. Additionally, a quarter-on-quarter comparison means that there is a further degree of double counting in the active accounts’ data-point. For example, if an account has been active in two months of the three months in a quarter, it will be counted twice in the total for that quarter. This is only applicable to active accounts and not any of the other data-points.
3Some operators may have revised their algorithms.
Data and downloads
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