UK egaming industry worth almost ?4bn
New Gambling Commission figures also reveal nearly half a million self-exclusions
The UK online gaming industry generated almost ?4bn in gross gaming yield (GGY) in the 12 months to September 2015, according to new figures from Great Britain’s Gambling Commission.
UK remote operators delivered approximately ?3.96bn in the year to September 2015, accounting for a 29% of the UK gambling industry.
The figure is more than double the industry’s previous GGY, but exact comparisons are difficult since the Point of Consumption tax was introduced in November 2014.
GGY measures the amount retained by operators after the payment of winnings, but before the deduction of the costs of the operation.
Casino games accounted for 59% of the remote total, with betting at 34%, before a big drop off to bingo at 3%, betting exchanges at 3% and pool betting at 1%.
Within casino, two thirds of GGY came from slots, with table games accounting for 15%. In betting, football generated 31% with horseracing at 22%.
The Commission’s figures also revealed there were 20.2 million active customer accounts in the remote sector as of September 2015 across casino, bingo and betting operators.
Within the same period, there were 19.9 million new account registrations with a total of ?508m held in customer funds.
Industry-wide figures for self-exclusions were also included for the first time, with 417,000 instances during the first 11 months of the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 regulatory framework. Of these, around 10% cancelled their self-exclusion after the minimum exclusion period.
Commission programme director James Green said: “For the first time the figures include almost a full year’s worth of data relating to online gambling operators – the market share of the online betting, bingo and casino sector is 29% and we’ll be interested to see how this varies over time.
“Offline we’re seeing changes. For instance, there’s been a reduction in the number of betting shops, arcades and bingo halls in the last two years.
“Market trends and consumer participation research are key to shaping the Commission’s regulatory policy to keep gambling in Britain safe for consumers, fair, and crime-free,” Green added.