Today, the UK Gambling Commission published its latest industry statistics of the market. The country’s regulatory body revealed that online gambling accounted for a total of 33% of the UK gambling sector in the period from April 2015 to March 2016. The Gambling Commission also announced that the online gambling operators in the country managed to generate a Gross Gambling Yield estimated to £4.5 billion.
The research results come at a time when the number of betting outlets across the territory of the UK have decreased by 1.8% in comparison to their number in March 2015. As of September 2016, there were a total of 8,709 betting outlets in the country. There was also a 0.4% decline in the number of gaming machines compared to last year. The UK Gambling Commission revealed that there are 167,839 gaming machines in Britain to date.
The Programme Director of the UKGC James Green commented on the British gambling regulator’s latest statistics. According to him, the results announced in the statistics show that the gambling companies in the industry as a whole head to taking a creative approach in terms of technology in order to make their products more attractive to customers. Mr. Green shared his belief that online operators would have to be more creative at a time when the sector marks a stable growth.
As mentioned above, the period from April 2015 to March 2016, online gambling turned out to be the largest gambling sector in the UK to date. The National Lottery generated £3.4 billion over the same period, while the high-street betting companies accounted for £3.3 billion. Brick-and-mortar casinos managed to generate only £1 billion, which is considerably lower than the GGY generated by the online gambling operations in the country.
As a whole, the Gross Gambling Yield of the country’s gambling industry amounted to £13.6 billion in the above-mentioned period.
Speaking of the online gambling industry, the Gambling Commission also revealed how each type of web-based activities has contributed to the total GGY of £4.5 billion. Online casino games have generated the most – £2.6 billion, with online slot machine games alone contributing with £1.8 billion. Sports betting accounted for £1.6 billion. The contribution of betting exchanges was estimated to £152 million. On the other hand, bingo operations contributed with £153 million, and pool betting generated another £26 million.
What is also interesting, is that the National Lottery was the largest contributor to good causes from April 2015 to March 2016, by giving away a total of £1.8 billion. This is 7.2% more in comparison to the previous year. On the other hand, there was a 10.5% increase in the amount of money raised for good causes through massive society lotteries. The latter accounted for accumulating £208 million.
- Author
Daniel Williams
