Statistics and research release
Market overview - operator data to December 2024 (published February 2025)
An overview of the data provided by gambling operators up to December 2024.
Summary
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Operator Data
The Gambling Commission has published data to December 2024, with the dataset collected since March 2020 showing how gambling behaviour has changed over the period.
This release compares Quarter 3 (October to December) of financial year 2024 to 2025, with Quarter 3 of 2023 to 2024, 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 Operators (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 December 2024 (published February 2025).
Online gambling
The online gambling data, collected from the largest online operators, covers the months March 2020 through to December 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.
This release compares quarter three (Q3) of financial year 2024 to 2025, with Quarter 3 of 2023 to 2024, looking at how the market has changed in comparative periods over a year.
Latest data1, from October to December 2024, shows total online Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) increased 21 percent, compared to the same period last year, to £1.54 billion. The increase was mostly driven by real event betting which increased by 38 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 with the number of bets/spins reaching a new peak in this dataset at 25.9 billion. Total bets and/or spins increased 8 percent while active accounts increased 3 percent, compared to the previous year.
Online real event betting
Online real event betting GGY increased by 38 percent year-on-year for Quarter 3, to £647 million, the highest recorded GGY since 2021 Quarter 2. This is likely due to bookmaker friendly results this quarter in comparison to the same quarter the previous year. The number of bets decreased 7 percent, while the average monthly active accounts decreased 3 percent compared to the same quarter last year.
Online slots
Slots GGY increased 15 percent year on year to a new high of £709 million for this reporting period. The number of spins increased 9 percent in the quarter to a new peak of 23.9 billion, while the number of average monthly active accounts increased 10 percent to 4.4 million. The number of spins per session has fallen from 145 to 151 year-on-year, whilst the GGY per session has fallen from £4.10 to £4.13 in the equivalent timeframe. Although this is a new peak for GGY in this dataset for the slots vertical, it should be noted that one operator has re-classified some of its products into the slot vertical this quarter, which has had an impact on the vertical data.
Online safer gambling indicators
The number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour increased by 6 percent year-on-year to 107 million. The number of total sessions increased by 13 percent in the equivalent time period to 170 million, approximately 6 percent of all sessions lasted in excess of one hour during the quarter, compared to 7 percent in Quarter 3 the previous year. The average session length increased to at 18 minutes.
The total number of customer interactions in Quarter 3 increased by 23 percent to 3.5 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 increased by 12 percent year-on-year. Some operators refined their markers of harms algorithms in Quarter 4 2023 to 2024, resulting in a higher number of interactions this quarter.
Offline Betting
The Commission has collected data from the largest LBOs for the months of March (pre-lockdown) and June 2020 through to December 2024.
GGY reported for Quarter 3 (October to December) increased by 5 percent from Quarter 3 last year to £592 million, while the number of total bets and spins decreased by 4 percent to 3.1 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 130 million, while GGY increased by 4 percent to nearly £160 million.
Self-Service Betting Terminals (SSBT)
The number of bets placed on SSBTs increased by 2 percent year-on-year to 39.5 million. GGY increased year-on-year by 32 percent to £153 million, a new peak for this dataset.
Machines sessions
Machines GGY decreased by 5 percent in Quarter 3 year-on-year to £280 million, with average spend per session decreasing 1 percent year-on-year to £12.28. The average number of spins per machines session decreased by 1 spin this quarter to 130 spins, remaining consistent with the last 3 previous quarters.
Offline safer gambling indicators
2.73 percent of machine sessions lasted more than one hour, which is a slight increase on 2.48 percent in Quarter 3 2023 to 2024.
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.
2 This 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 further degree of double counting in the active accounts’ data-point. For example, if an account has been active in two of the three months in that 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.
3 Some operators may have revised their algorithms.
Data and downloads
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