UK report: Top 5% of losing accounts generate 70% of overall online gross gambling revenue

An in-depth study into the online gambling sector has revealed the top 5% of losing accounts generate a minimum of 70% of overall gross gambling revenue (GGR) across nearly every vertical. Researchers analysed more than 140,000 active online gaming and betting accounts at seven major operators between July 2018 and June 2019 in one of the biggest samples of the sector to date. The undisclosed operators included in the study are thought to capture more than 85% of the online betting market and more than 37% of the online gaming market in the UK. Of the betting accounts examined, 85% spent less than £200 on betting during the period, while 90% of gaming accounts had an overall win or loss rate of less than £500 for the year. Fewer than 1% (0.7%) of accounts used for betting lost £5,000 or more, rising to 1.2% for online gaming accounts.

Among online accounts which spent £5,000 or more, more than 95% were held by men, typically in their 40s. Overall, 78.4% of betting accounts were held by men, accounting for 94% of GGR. In respect of online gaming, it was slots and casino games that accounted for 93% of GGR. Slots was the principal product in online gaming. The study found 72.2% of gaming-active accounts included at least some slots play. More than half (53%) of the accounts analysed played on virtual casino games and 19.5% on live casino games, with these two categories combined providing 33% of GGR. Just 4% of accounts used for gaming (164,000) lost more than £500 in a single session during the year. Fifteen percent of online gaming accounts also participated in bingo, though spend was low and contributed only 3.6% of gaming GGR. The report was commissioned by GambleAware and carried out by researchers at the National Centre for Social Research in collaboration with University of Liverpool professors David Forrest and Ian McHale. Each operator was requested to provide an anonymised list of all UK-registered online accounts where there had been at least one transaction, in which money had been gambled, between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019. Exactly 20,000 accounts per operator were sampled, while full transactional data for the time period was requested and supplied to the researchers for analysis. Researchers also investigated the use of safer-gambling tools. Around 4% received contact from an operator for the purpose of social responsibility, with the vast majority (84%) of those contacts being made via email. Of the accounts which lost more than £2,000 during the year, around a third (36%) had received a social responsibility contact during the year, while fewer than 1% received a phone call from an operator. Among safer-gambling tools, deposit limits were the most widely used by online account holders. Around a fifth (21.5%) set deposit limits, whereas self-exclusion was applied to 2.3% of accounts. “This research was able to analyse and assess an unprecedented source of information on how people in Great Britain gamble and it opens up numerous opportunities to further understand people’s gambling habits,” said Dr Sokratis Dinos of the National Centre for Social Research. “These interim findings are just the first stage and future research will provide a greater opportunity to understand the risk factors associated with gambling behaviour,” Dinos added.