Statistics and research release
Market overview - operator data to December 2023 (published January 2023)
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 December 2023, with the dataset collected since March 2020 showing how gambling behaviour has changed over the period.
This release compares Quarter 3 (October to December) (Q3) of financial year 2023 to 2024, with Quarter 3 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 LBOs found on Britain’s high streets.
We encourage you to always refer to the most recent excel data document which contains updated data for the entire period.
Online gambling
The online gambling data, collected from the largest online operators, covers the months March 2020 through to December 2023.
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 October to December 2023, shows total online Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) increased 4 percent, compared to the same period last year, to £1.3 billion. The increase was mostly driven by slots and real event betting, which increased by 6 and 5 percent respectively year-on-year, while GGY for nearly all other verticals decreased.
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 9 percent and 2 percent respectively, compared to the previous year. 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 5 percent year-on-year for Quarter 3, to £468 million. The number of bets and active accounts both decreased by 3 percent compared to the same quarter last year. It is likely that the reduction in actives and bets was influenced by the Football World Cup which took place in Quarter 3 last year.
Online slots
Slots GGY increased 6 percent to £618 million year-on-year for this reporting period. This is the highest recorded quarter since we started collecting this dataset in March 2020. The number of spins increased 11 percent in the quarter to a new peak of nearly 22 billion, while the number of average monthly active accounts increased 8 percent to 4 million. The GGY per active player for online slots therefore decreased by 2 percent year-on-year.
Online safer gambling indicators
The number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour increased by 3 percent year-on-year to 9.8 million, marking the highest quarter since data collection began. The number of total sessions increased by 7 percent in the equivalent time period also recording the highest number of total sessions in a quarter, with approximately 7 percent of all sessions lasting in excess of one hour during the quarter. The average session length decreased to 17 minutes when compared to 19 minutes in Quarter 3 2022.
The total number of customer interactions in Quarter 3 decreased by 2 percent to 2.9 million compared to the same period last year, with the majority remaining automated in nature3. The number of direct interactions undertaken by operators in this dataset has decreased by 10 percent year-on-year.
Offline Betting
The Commission has collected data from the largest LBOs for the months of March (pre-lockdown) and June 2020 through to December 2023.
GGY reported for Quarter 3 (October to December) increased by 0.5 percent from Quarter 3 last year to £563 million, while the number of total bets and spin decreased 4 percent to 3.3 billion.
Over the Counter (OTC)
The number of bets placed over the counter decreased 3 percent in the quarter compared to the same period last year to 135 million, while GGY also decreased by 3 percent to £153 million. This represented the lowest recorded numbers 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 10 percent year-on-year to 39 million, signifying the highest recorded quarter since data collection began. Furthermore, GGY increased year-on-year by 17 percent to £116 million.
Machines sessions
Machines GGY decreased by 3 percent in Quarter 3 year-on-year to £293 million, with average spend per session decreased 1 percent year-on-year to £12.41. The average number of spins per machines session decreased by 2 spins this quarter to 131 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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