Published by the Gambling Commission, the Q3 figures offer an insight into gambling activity in Great Britain. Quarterly data has been posted every three months covering each three-month period since March 2020.
The latest data set covers the three months to 31 December 2023. In Q3, the headline figure is the overall GGY, with the Commission saying this was driven by growth across slots and real event betting.
Record slots GGY in Q3
Slots remain the primary driver of GGY in Britain. For Q3, slots GGY amounted to £618m, up 6% on the previous year and the highest quarterly total on record. The Commission also said the total number of spins increased 11% to a new peak of nearly 22 billion, while average monthly active accounts was up 8% to four million.
Elsewhere, real-event betting GGY reached £468m, up 5% year-on-year. This was despite the number of bets and active accounts both falling 3% from last year. This, the Commission said, was due to the Fifa World Cup taking place in Q3 of 2022.
Other GGY in Q3 came from online casino, virtual betting, esports betting, casino and poker. Online casino GGY hit £159.7m, virtual betting £12.0m, esports betting £2.4m and poker £17.6m. An additional £2.0m came from other sources.
Mixed results for offline market
Turning to land-based gambling, the Commission said Q3 was something of a mixed period.
Machines were the main source of GGY in Q3 with £293m, but this was 3% lower than the previous year. Average spend per session fell 1% to £12.41 and the average number of spins fell to 131.
Over the counter GGY was down 3% to £153m and the number of bets also fell 3% to 135 million. The Commission said this was the lowest recorded numbers since venues have been fully open for an entire quarter.
There was better news with self-service betting terminals (SSBTs) as GGY jumped 17% to £116m. The number of SSBT bets also climbed 10% to 39 million, representing the highest quarter on record.
Online slot sessions increase
Alongside GGY, the Commission also published data for safer gambling indicators in Q3.
The number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour increased 3% to 9.8 million, the highest quarter since data collection began. Total sessions were up 7% while the average session length decreased to 17 minutes.
Customer interactions fell 2% to 2.9 million, with the majority automated. The number of direct interactions undertaken by operators in this dataset fell 10% year-on-year.
As for the land-based market, total machines sessions lasting more than one hour fell to 2%, down from 3% in 2022.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/finance/britain-gross-gambling-yield-up-in-q3/
