UK's digital gambling revenue takes a hit even as physical venues thrive.

Examining the latest figures from the UK Gambling Commission, we see a 2% dip in the online GGY for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2022/23. This is despite an uptick in brick-and-mortar gambling.

For the three months leading up to December 31, 2021, the online sector's GGY was £1.20bn, slightly down from the previous year, as per the report from the regulator.

The Commission identified the downturn as stemming from a decline in real-time betting and casino activities online.

Despite a 21% increase in the number of bets placed, the online GGY from live events decreased by 3% to £446m. Simultaneously, there was a notable 20% rise in average monthly active accounts.

The UKGC speculates that the spike in betting activity was largely due to the FIFA World Cup held from November to December 2022. However, they suggest that pauses in major European leagues for the event might explain the decline in overall expenditure.

In their briefing, the Commission noted a 30.2% drop in GGY from virtual betting, totaling £12.0m, and a 29.4% drop for esports, amounting to £2.4m.

Throughout the quarter, online casino's overall GGY fell by 8%, with the slot machine segment experiencing a 2% shrink to £582m. This decrease occurred despite an 8% increase in spin counts to 19.7 billion and a 13% increase in monthly active accounts to 3.7 million. Nonetheless, the spins per player dropped by 5%.

Other gaming activities saw a GGY decrease of 7.8% to £159.7m, with poker experiencing an 11.6% reduction to £17.6m. Additional gambling avenues saw their GGY sink by 37.5% to £2.0m.

GGY from Land-Based Activities

Contrastingly, the land-based sector demonstrated a 5% GGY increase to £560m when compared to Q3 of 2021, with wagers and spins also rising by 2% to 3.4 billion.

The Commission mentioned that the OTC market's GGY sank by 5% to £158m, along with a 4% reduction in the number of placed bets to 140 million. The World Cup's timing, absence of the Premier League, and cancellation of horse races were attributed to December's OTC struggles, marking an all-time low since post-pandemic operations resumed.

Self-service betting terminals experienced a 20% surge in GGY, reaching £100m, with bets placed rising to 35.1 million – a 25% rise.

GGY from gaming machines indicated a 6% rise to £302m, with per-session spending increasing to £12.48. Players engaged in 133 spins per session on average during the third quarter.

The Commission further noted that 3% of machine sessions lasted beyond an hour in the observed quarter.

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