Last updated: August 14, 2024
The UK Gambling Commission’s latest report for Q1 2024-2025 highlights significant growth in the online gambling sector, with a total gross gambling yield of £1.46 billion and a notable 11% increase in bets placed. While online slots and real event betting flourished, retail betting experienced a slight decline, showcasing mixed trends across the industry.
The UK Gambling Commission has published the new figures for gambling on both land-based and over the Internet for the first quarter of the financial year 2024-2025. The evaluation for April to June 2024 shows that there is a much larger online gambling industry than there was the year before.
Of special note is the growth in one niche market, which is the online gambling market total, with gross gambling yields of £1. 46 billion. Such a growth was supported by 24. about 5 billion bets and spins by its customers across the licensed operators in Great Britain, and this points out an overall rise of 11% in the number of bets compared to the previous year.
This growth can particularly be attributed to the performance of the iGaming sector, which contributed immensely to this performance. Concerning the other segments, real event betting also showed impressive growth, with the gross gaming yield increasing to £625 million, 16% more than before.
From the report by the UKGC, different categories operating in the online sector were displayed and rolled over, especially the slot segment. The two increased slot games’ gross gaming yield to £ 642 million from £ 579 million recorded for the same period the previous year, translating to an annual growth rate of about 10 per cent.
This report pointed out that there were 22. 4 billion times on slot machines during the stated period. More than bets over the slot machines were laid during the stated period.
Other segments also have different levels of growth seen across the different periods in the analysis. Online casino operations other than slots brought £160 million, up from £146 million a year ago.
However, online poker seemed to experience a little downturn, whereby the GGR declined to £14 million from £16.3 million in the previous year. From the above fiscal year report, this was a general 3 million in the previous year.
The recently published report on the situation in Great Britain by the UKGC shows that, despite the emerging number of restrictions and huge losses due to COVID-19, the industry is actively developing and diversifying its offerings in terms of the Internet space.
The data from the UK Gambling Commission for Q1 2024-2025 brings in their different aspects as some parts of gambling increase while some decrease. Even though the average of gross gaming yield went up, total bets made available were slightly down in number.
The gross gaming yield for online slots was up by ten per cent in the past year to £642m. The total count of bets staked on the slots of chance during the period was pegged at 22. 4 billion, therefore, implying that people are still fascinated with this type of gambling.
Another significant statistic highlighted by the regulator was the dip in the players’ playing time; however, the timeframe dedicated to playing slots established an 8% to 9%. This is none too shabby but session times dipped negligibly with players spending an average of 17 minutes a session as compared to 18 in the the same period of the prior year.
On the other hand, the retail betting market declined, mainly because of the intensification of competition. Total revenues derived from on-the-internet bingo reduced from £180 million in Q1 2023-2024 to £168 million in Q1 2024-2025, with on-the-internet retail betting dropping from £15 million to £13 million in the same duration.
The self-service betting terminals, however, slightly improved from 115 million pounds to 124 million pounds in the same period. Another factor that also slightly declined was the revenues of retail slot machines, which declined from £292 million to £290 million.
Thus, in the iGaming sector, online casino operations other than slots increased, and the revenues went up from £146 million to £160 million YoY. However, online poker was the only sector that contracted slightly, seeing its gross gaming revenues reduced from £16. 3 million Q1 2023/2024 to £14 million Q1 2024/2025.
These opposing trends signify the dynamics of the buoyant mobile and online segments and retail space betting, which is struggling in the UK gambling market.
