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Statistics and research release

Market overview - operator data to June 2022 (published August 2022)

Operator data to June 2022 (published August 2022).

Statistics
Statistics and research hub

Collection
The gambling market

Series
Market impact of Covid 19

Published on
4 August 2022

Summary

Additional data sets in this series

Details

Operator Data

The Gambling Commission has published data to June 2022, with the dataset collected since March 2020 showing gambling behaviour has changed over the period.

Retail sectors1 mainly reopened on the following dates after the last set of restrictions:

  • 12 April 2021 - Licenced betting operators
  • 17 May 2021 - Arcades, bingo, and casinos

All remaining restrictions were removed in England on 17 July 2021.

Minor restrictions, such as the need for face coverings and guidance to work from home, were brough in by the UK government from October 2021 to January 2022 to help tackle the Omicron variant.

Operators still need to be mindful about the potential of some consumers to be increasing their spend on some of the more intensive products while going through financial hardship brought on by wider economics factors.

We will publish this data on a quarterly basis, and as a result this analysis makes a quarter-on-quarter comparison. Please note that this refers to quarter one (Q1) in the financial year 2022-2023 (91 days) and quarter four (Q4) in the financial year 2021-2022 (90 days).

Caution is advised when making year-on-year comparisons for some months due to the different circumstances between 2020 and 2022. For example, retail estates were in operation for most of March 2020, but fully closed in March 2021.

This release covers data from online operators and Licensed Betting Operators (LBOs) found on Britain’s high streets.

Online gambling

The online gambling data, collected from the largest online operators, now covers the months March 2020 through to June 2022.

Comparison should not be made with the industry statistics dataset, as the market impact data may include free bets and bonuses.

Latest data shows total GGY stayed relatively steady at £1.2 billion in Q1 (April to June), an increase of nearly 1% from Q4 (January to March). The increase was driven by the slots vertical.

Both the overall number of total bets/spins and the number of average monthly active accounts2 increased 5% between Q4 and Q1, likely to be as a result of the Grand National in April.

We will continue to collect and monitor the data to inform our views of risk.

Online real event betting

Online real event betting GGY decreased 3% between Q4 and Q1, to £479m. The number of bets increased by 12% while the number of average monthly active accounts increased by 11% between Q4 and Q1, reflecting the increase in recreational gambling usually seen due to the Grand National which takes place in April.

Online slots

Slots GGY increased 4% to £565 million between Q4 and Q1, after previously falling to £541 million in Q4. The number of spins increased 5% to 18.7 billion, while the number of average monthly active accounts increased 4% to reach nearly 3.6 million. The number of spins per active player remained steady between Q4 & Q1.

Safer gambling indicators

The number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour increased by 5% to 8.4 million between Q4 and Q1. The average session length decreased by a minute to 17 minutes, with approximately 7% of all sessions lasting in excess of one hour during Q1.

The number of customer interactions in Q1 remained level at 3.3 million, with the majority remaining automated in nature.3 The number of direct interactions undertaken by operators increased by 2% from Q4.

Offline Betting

The Commission has collected data from the largest Licenced betting operators (LBOs) for the months of March (pre-lockdown) and June 2020 through to June 2022. It is worth noting that LBOs closed on 20 March 2020 and re-opened4 from 15 June 2020 before entering a tiered system in October 2020 and closing January 2021. LBOs were permitted to reopen again 12 April 2021.

Absolute values are not directly comparable for some months between these periods for several reasons including:

  • retail not in operation for a full month in March and June 2020
  • phased openings of premises after restrictions began to lift from June 2020
  • local restrictions throughout 2020
  • impact of restrictions on other retail gambling sectors.

GGY reported for Q1 (April to June) increased by 6% from Q4 (January to March) to £584 million, while the number of total bets and spins increased 3% to 3.3 billion.

Over the Counter (OTC)

The number of bets placed over the counter increased 8% in Q1 to 156 million, while GGY increased 10% to £194 million.

Self-Service Betting Terminals (SSBT)

The number of bets placed decreased by 4% from Q4 to 27.4 million, while GGY decreased by 1% during the same period to £97 million.

Machines sessions

Machines GGY increased 6% in Q1 to £294 million with average spend per session increasing to £11.98. The average number of spins per machines session remained level at 129 spins in Q1.

Safer Gambling Indicators

Similar to Q3 and Q4, 3% of total machines sessions lasted more than an hour in Q1.

Unique customer numbers are not available but the data does indicate the potential for an increase in intensity of play and the need for operators to remain vigilant in line with the Commission’s latest guidance.

Notes

1These dates reflect re-opening of retail in England.

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.

4Except Scotland.

Data and downloads

There are no files for this release.

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