The UK Gambling Commission has published its regular data regarding customers’ gambling behaviour and how it is reacting to current factors in the country’s gambling environment.
The operator data unveiled by the local gambling regulatory body covers the period from March 2020 and September 2022, inclusive, and reflects customer data about both in-person and online gambling that was specially provided by so-called LBOs (licensed betting operators) in the UK. As previously explained by Casino Guardian, such data is published by the Commission on a quarterly basis.
The country’s gambling watchdog warned that operators are advised to be cautious when making any year-on-year comparisons between some months of the data collection period because operating environments were different as a result of the different lockdown restrictions from 2020 to 2022. The UKGC also warned that comparison should not be made with the industry statistics dataset due to the fact that bonuses and free bets may be included in the market impact data.
LBO’s Gross Gaming Yield Falls to £540 Million between Q1 and Q2
According to data unveiled by the UK Gambling Commission, the total online Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) in the second quarter of the year – from July to September – amounted to £1.2 billion, a figure marking a 4% decline in comparison to the online GGY registered in the previous quarter, from April to June.
The UK gambling industry regulator also revealed that the total number of bets or spins was reduced by 1% from the first to the second quarter, while the average number of monthly active accounts fell by 9%.
The gross gaming yield generated by slots fell by 3% to £548 million between the first and the second fiscal quarter. A 2% decline to 18.5 billion was registered in the number of spins, while the average monthly active accounts gell by 4% to 3.4 million per month over the period. However, the UKGC revealed that the number of online slots sessions that lasted for more than an hour remained pretty much unchanged between the first and the second fiscal quarter. The length of the average gambling session was 17 minutes, with approximately 7% of all sessions lasting for over an hour.
Licensed Betting Operators’ GGY fell by 8% to £540 million in the period from the first and the second quarter, while the number of overall bets and spins fell by 5%, reaching 3.2 billion.
Gambling Operators Expected to Be Extra Vigilant to Customers
The UK Gambling Commission shared that it will continue to track market-related risk by monitoring, collecting and publishing key and additional data and evaluating the impact that the enhanced guidance issued to operators has on the market.
The regulator informed gambling companies operating in the local market that it expects extra vigilance from operators, as customers feel the effects of gambling in different ways considering the current economic environment, with many of them being expected to feel vulnerable when facing uncertainty regarding their financial or personal circumstances.
Gambling companies in the UK are expected to stick to the enhanced guidance of the Gambling Commission issued in 2020, with the regulatory body taking a close interest in data showing consumers expanding their gambling participation and spending more time or money than before. Furthermore, operators need to interact directly with consumers whenever triggers are reached, in addition to the more generic e-mail engagement they have.
Of course, the UKGC expects UK gambling companies not to exploit the situation for their marketing purposes and to take care when new customers sign up with them, including making decisions over affordability checks, etc.
- Author
Daniel Williams
