Statistics and research release
Market overview - operator data to September 2024 (published October 2024)
An overview of the data provided by gambling operators up to September 2024.
Summary
Also published recently
Operator Data
The Gambling Commission has published data to September 2024, with the dataset collected since March 2020 showing how gambling behaviour has changed over the period.
This release compares Quarter 2 (July to September) of financial year 2024 to 2025, with Quarter 2 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 September 2024 (published October 2024).
Online gambling
The online gambling data, collected from the largest online operators, covers the months March 2020 through to September 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 July to September 2024, shows total online Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) increased 11 percent, compared to the same period last year, to £1.32 billion. The increase was mostly driven by slots which increased by 16 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 12 percent and 8 percent respectively, compared to the previous year. Totalling over 25.2bn, this is the highest recorded overall number of bets and/or spins for a quarter since data collection began, breaking the record set in the previous quarter.
Online real event betting
Online real event betting GGY increased by 6 percent year-on-year for Quarter 2, to £453 million. The number of bets decreased 10 percent, while the average monthly active accounts increased 9 percent compared to the same quarter last year.
Online slots
Slots GGY increased 16 percent to a new high of £680 million year-on-year for this reporting period. The number of spins increased 13 percent in the quarter to a new peak of 23.3 billion, while the number of average monthly active accounts increased 16 percent to 4.4 million. The number of spins per session has fallen from 147 to 142 YoY, whilst the GGY per session has fallen from £4.20 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 9 percent year-on-year to 10 million. The number of total sessions increased by 18 percent in the equivalent time period to 164.7 million, the highest total number recorded in the dataset. Approximately 6.1 percent of all sessions lasted in excess of one hour during the quarter, compared to 6.6 percent in Quarter 2 the previous year. The average session length remained at 17 minutes.
The total number of customer interactions in Quarter 2 increased by 1 percent to 3 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 1 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 September 2024.
GGY reported for Quarter 2 (July to September) decreased by 1 percent from Quarter 2 last year to £533 million, while the number of total bets and spins decreased by 0.1 percent to 3.1 billion.
Over the Counter (OTC)
The number of bets placed over the counter decreased 6 percent in the quarter compared to the same period last year to 134 million, while GGY decreased by 8 percent to £152 million.
Self-Service Betting Terminals (SSBT)
The number of bets placed on SSBTs increased by 9 percent year-on-year to 34 million. GGY increased year-on-year by 8 percent to £101 million.
Machines sessions
Machines GGY increased by 0.2 percent in Quarter 2 year-on-year to £281 million, with average spend per session increasing 2 percent year-on-year to £12.35. The average number of spins per machines session increased by 2 spins this quarter to 130 spins.
Offline safer gambling indicators
The proportion of total machines sessions lasting more than one hour remained at 2 percent, the same as 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.
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
There are no files for this release.