British land-based gambling revenue recovers to pre-pandemic level

Figures from the Gambling Commission show revenue rose 20 per cent in the last financial year.

UK.- The British Gambling Commission has reported its annual industry statistics for the financial year from April 2022 to March 2023. Total gross gambling yield (GGY) across all verticals was £15.1bn, up 6.8 per cent year-on-year and 6.6 per cent from 2019-2020. Removing lottery, GGY was up by 9.3 per cent year-on-year and 7.6 per cent from 2020 at £10.9bn.

While online gambling continued to generate the highest proportion of revenue at £6.5bn, it rose by only 2.8 per cent year-on-year. The figure was up by 13.3 per cent compared to April 2019 – March 2020. However, the big growth driver in the last financial year was the recovery of land-based gambling after the end of lockdown measures.

Land-based gambling revenue rose by 20 per cent year-on-year to £4.5bn. The figure was up by 0.2 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels and accounted for 41 per cent of all gambling revenue, up from 35 per cent in 2021 – 2022. Gaming machine GGY was up 23 per cent at £2.4bn, a rise of 17.9 per cent compared to 2019 – 2020.

The recovery of land-based gross gambling yield comes despite a drop of 187 in the number of regulated land-based gambling venues. Several major brands closed premises amid the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of retail betting shops has fallen to 5,995, which is 1,386 fewer than before the pandemic, but retail betting GGY rose 2.5 per cent from 2019 – 2020 and 15.4 per cent from 2021 – 2022.

Land-based arcade revenue saw the biggest growth, rising 38.9 per cent year-on-year and 32.8 per cent compared to 2019 – 2020 to £572.2m. Some £533.3m came from adult gaming centres and £38.8m from family entertainment centres.

However, not all land-based gambling revenue has recovered. Land-based casinos generated GGY of £810.4m, an increase of 17.2 per cent year-on-year, but down 20.4 per cent below 2019 – 2020.

Finally, National Lottery ticket sales reached £8.2bn. This was an increase of 1.1 per cent year-on-year.

New Gambling Commission consultation

Last week, the Gambling Commission opened its second round of consultations following the publication of the UK government’s gambling review white paper in April. It’s consulting on five areas for a period of 12 weeks, up until February 21, 2024.

Topics in the consultation are socially responsible incentives, with proposals to ensure free bets and bonuses do not encourage excessive gambling, customer-led tools such as deposit limits and proposals to increase the transparency for customers in cases where licensees provide no protection in the event of insolvency.