GB igaming rises 3.7% to £4.9bn

The Gambling Commission has published a six-month update to its gambling industry statistics, showing a 3.7% rise in online gross gambling yield (GGY) in Great Britain.

Total GGY for the industry in the period from October 2016 to September 2017 amounted to £13.9bn (€15.8bn/$18.5bn), up 0.7% on the six months from April 2016 to March 2017.

GGY for the online market totalled £4.9bn, with the remote sector holding a 35% share of the overall market in the period.

The Gambling Commission did report a 0.8% decline in the number of people employed in the gambling industry to 106,366, while the amount of betting shops in Great Britain also dropped 3.2% to 8,532.

Gaming machine numbers fell 0.7% to 183,928, excluding those requiring only a authority permit, while the amount of licensed arcades dropped 3.5% to 1,810.

However, the number of bingo premises climbed 2% to 649, while land-based casino sites also increased by two to a total of 152 across Great Britain.

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