The UK Gambling Commission has published its latest market impact data, covering the first quarter of the 2024-2025 financial year.
Data show that the online gambling market has grown significantly, with Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) reaching 1.46 billion pounds (approximately 1.87 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter, an increase of 12% compared with the same period last year.
The number of bets and rollbacks also grew by 11% to a new high of 24.5 billion, while the number of monthly active accounts increased by 9%.
Live event betting has also experienced significant growth, with GGY up 16% year-on-year to £625m, despite a 7% drop in the number of bets placed. This growth may have been driven by major sporting events such as UEFA Euro 2024 .
Growth was also seen in the slots sector, with GGY up 10% to £642m, rollbacks up 12% to 22.4bn, and monthly active accounts up 11% to 4.4m per month. The figures Both are the highest records in the slot machine vertical field in this data set.
Interestingly, the number of online slots sessions lasting more than an hour increased by 8% to 9.6 million, but the average session length remained stable at 17 minutes. Only 6% of all sessions lasted more than an hour, the lowest percentage recorded in this dataset.
In contrast to growth in the online market, Licensed Betting Operators (LBOs) on the UK high street experienced a slight decline, with GGY falling 1% to £582m, and the number of bets and rollbacks It also dropped 1% to 3.2 billion.
The Commission noted that these figures may include free bets and bonuses and do not cover all operators, thus cautioning against direct comparisons with industry statistical datasets. The Commission also mentioned an ongoing product classification investigation, which may lead to some adjustments in the figures between verticals.
