Great Britain online gross gambling yield hits £1.36bn in Q4
The Gambling Commission has published data on GGY every three months, covering each quarterly period, since March 2019. The Q4 latest figures cover yield for the three months to 31 March 2024.
GGY in Q4 was £65m higher than the £1.29bn reported by the Commission in the same period last year. It is also ahead of Q3. This growth, the Commission said, was driven by a notable increase in slots GGY, as well as higher real-event betting GGY.
Slots GGY tops £614m in Q4
Beginning with slots, GGY for this section of the market reached £614m in Q1, an increase of 11% on last year. March was the busiest month in Q4 with a total yield of £220.4m.
Total number of spins in Q4 climbed 12% to more than 21.9 billion, while average monthly active accounts in Q4 were up 7% to 4.2 million per month.
As for how long people spent playing, the number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour increased 2% to 9.5 million. The average session length was down by one minute to 17 minutes, with approximately 6% of all sessions lasting more than an hour.
Real event betting yield edges up to £565m
Elsewhere in the market, real event betting contributed £565m in online GGY, up 2% on last year. This was despite the number of bets in this sector falling 6% to around 923 million.
Average monthly active accounts in Q4 increased 1% for the real event betting market. It was also noted that March was the busiest month of Q4 here with active accounts at 2.8 million, total bets 338.3 million and GGY £233.8m.
As for other areas of the market, online casino GGY topped £147.4m in Q4, with £53.9m of this coming in March. Internet poker yield reached £15.1m, virtual betting £10.5m, esports betting £4.3m and other gambling £1.4m.
Offline GGY slips 3% in Q4
Turning to the land-based market and GGY from licensed betting operators (LBOs) declined 3% to £568m.
Of this total, £288.9m came from machines, down 1.1% from the previous year. Over-the-counter betting generated £152.5m in total GGY during Q4, while the remaining £126.4m came from self-service betting terminals (SSBTs).
The total number of bets and spins made during the quarter fell 1% to 3.30 billion. Machines accounted for 3.09 billion of all such wagers in Q4.
In terms of player activity on machines, some 23.7 million sessions were recorded during the three-month period. Of these sessions, 587,051 latest longer than one hour.