The Gambling Commission has published further data showing how gambling behaviour is reacting to current environmental factors in Great Britain.

The operator data reflects the period between March 2020 and September 2022, inclusive, and covers online and in-person gambling with data from Licensed Betting Operators (LBOs) found on Britain’s high streets.

The Commission advises caution when making any year-on-year comparisons between some months during the period of this data collection due to differing operating environments as a result of varying degrees of lockdown restrictions between 2020 and 2022. Comparison should also not be made with the industry statistics dataset, as the market impact data may include free bets and bonuses.

This latest update contains operator data to September 2022. This data is published on a quarterly basis, so this analysis makes quarter-on-quarter comparisons. References to quarter one (Q1) and quarter two (Q2) are in the financial year 2022-2023.

The latest operator data shows:

• online total Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) in Q2 (July to September) was £1.2 billion, a decrease of four percent from Q1 (April to June); the overall number of total bets and or spins decreased one percent from Q1 to Q2, the average monthly active accounts decreased nine percent;
• slots GGY decreased three percent to £548 million between Q1 and Q2; the number of spins decreased two percent to 18.5 billion, while the average monthly active accounts decreased four percent to 3.4 million per month;
• the number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour remained stable at 8.4 million between Q1 and Q2; the average session length lasted 17 minutes, with approximately seven percent of all sessions lasting more than one hour; and
• LBO GGY decreased eight percent to £540 million between Q1 and Q2, while the number of total bets and spins decreased five percent to 3.2 billion.

The Commission says that it continues to expect extra vigilance from operators as consumers are impacted in different ways by the current economic environment. Many people will feel vulnerable as they face further uncertainty about their personal or financial circumstances. To read the Commission’s press release in full, click here.