UK online GGY hits £6.5bn despite sports betting’s flat return
Remote operators buoyed by 5% uptick in online casino to drive total GGY as number of firms in the market drop
Online sports betting, casino and bingo in the UK reached £6.5bn in gross gambling yield (GGY) between April 2022 and March 2023, representing a 2.8% year-on-year (YoY) increase.
According to the latest figures released by the Gambling Commission (GC), online operators saw GGY increase compared to April 2021 to March 2022, while the figure was up 13.3% on the last pre-lockdown period of April 2019 to March 2020.
Breaking total online GGY down by vertical, sports betting reported GGY of £2.3bn during the reporting period which was the same amount as April 2021 to March 2022.
Sports betting GGY has therefore remained stable since the 13% decrease between April 2019 to March 2020 and April 2021 to March 2022.
Of total sports betting GGY, football accounted for £1.1bn while horseracing represented £733.5m of total GGY.
Online casino GGY increased by 5% YoY to £4bn compared to £3.8bn in the previous reporting period, with slots representing the lion’s share of GGY with a return of £3.2bn.
Elsewhere, online bingo reported a 6% YoY decrease in GGY to 173.6m.
In terms of customer accounts, the reporting period saw an increase of new account registrations by 10.6% to 36.4 million. Comparing this to the last pre-lockdown period, new account registrations shot up by 21.8%.
Active accounts increased 4% YoY while total funds held in customer accounts amounted to £877.5m at the end of the reporting period.
This figure represented a 3.6% downturn compared to April 2021 to March 2022 and a 26.7% fall pre-Covid.
Taking in total market GGY, including land-based operations and lotteries, UK GGY stood at £15.1bn between April 2022 and March 2023.
This represents a 6.8% YoY increase on the previous reporting period, and a 6.6% increase from the last pre-lockdown date range.
Other key figures from the GC’s data set include £1.7bn being donated to good causes from the National Lottery, while there was a 3% decrease in the number of operators in the market.