Real event betting growth drives GB GGY in Q2
When looking at the April to June period, which includes the Grand National and the end of the football season, GB online gambling revenue rose 5% to £1.3bn compared to the 2022 period.
The Gambling Commission said growth in real event betting drove the increase, which rose 12% to £538m.
The Commission highlighted the total number of bets and spins rose 6% during the three-month period. This was reflected in the number of average monthly active accounts, which grew 5%.
Meanwhile slot GGY expanded 3% to £583m. The segment also saw the number of spins rise 7% to 20 billion, with the number of average monthly active accounts increasing 12% to four million.
On a monthly basis, revenue fell 15.8% from the £462.9m reported by the industry in May. However, this may reflect seasonal factors and not indicate a general downturn in business.
GB online gross gambling yield rose 5.3% in June to £389.7m, driven by increases in the largest revenue segment, slots.
Figures do not account for total market
The GB gambling market data is based on reports from the UK’s largest operators, covering approximately 80% of the total gambling market.
As such, the figures do not account for GGY generated by smaller gaming businesses and should not be understood as an account of the whole market.
Steady progress on safer gambling
While dramatic progress was not achieved, safer gambling indicators indicated slightly healthier gaming activity during the period.
While a direct connection is hard to draw from the data alone, this may be related to UK operators’ ongoing self-imposed implementation of safer gambling checks in the wake of the Gambling Act review white paper.
The number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour fell 0.2% year-on-year to 8.4 million, the Commission said. This came as the number of total sessions increased by 5.8% during the period, with 6.3% of those sessions being over an hour.
The GC also highlighted a decline in the average session length to 16 minutes, the first time this has occurred in the dataset.
The number of customer interactions during the quarter also fell 13% to 2.9 million, with the majority remaining automated in nature.