Gross gambling yield (GGY) in Great Britain declined 4% quarter-on-quarter during the three months to the end of September, while the number of bets and of average active accounts also fell.
Overall market GGY for the second quarter of the 2022-23 financial year stood at £1.20bn (€1.39bn/$1.44bn), according to the latest data published by the Gambling Commission.
While this data showed declines across almost all areas of the market, the Commission said that the primary reason for the fall in GGY was due to a drop in real-event betting. Online GGY for this segment was down 6% to £452m.
Other areas of the online market that experienced declines included slots, where GGY was down 3% quarter-on-quarter to £548m, while GGY from other gaming including casino fell 5%.
Poker and esports betting GGY also fell in Q2, while the only area of the online gambling sector that experienced growth was virtual betting, where GGY edged up 2%.
Turning to the land-based segment and GGY here was also down 8% to £540m. Over-the-counter (OTC) GGY fell 15% to £165m, while self-service betting terminals (SSBT) GGY dropped 3% to £92m and machines GGY 4% to £281m.
Number of bets down
Looking at player activity and the overall number of total bets and or spins played online slipped 1%, with the Commission noting declines across the board, with the exception of casino where this increase 5%.
The number of average monthly active accounts also fell by 9% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Casino players were up 4%, but all other areas experienced a decline, with the biggest fall being real-event betting, which was down 15%.
The average length of an online slots session remained level while the total number of slots sessions edged up 1%.
In terms of offline activity, the number of total bets and spins decreased 5% to 3.2 billion. This included a 9% drop in bets placed over the counter and a 4% fall in SSBT bets placed, though the average number of spins per machine remained level at 129.
The quarterly figures come after the Commission last week also announced that Great Britain’s GGY excluding lotteries, increased 16.5% to £9.93bn from April 2021 to March 2022.
While this was a significant rise, the total is 0.8% below the 2019-20 numbers, which mostly occurred pre-pandemic. Despite the increase in the headline numbers since this, the Commission reports that the number of bettors in the sector have fallen.
