Apart from a minor downturn during the pandemic, when many sports were cancelled, the UK Gambling Industry remains in rude health. Continuing growth in revenue means that the UK Gambling Industry generated £15.6 billion between April 2023 and March 2024. (Source – UK Gambling Commission).
That figure represents a 3.5% increase in Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) from the period April 2022 and March 2023. Furthermore, indications show that this growth rate is accelerating, with another report from Technavio stating that they estimate the Current Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of the industry from 2025 to 2029 to be around 5.4% annually and increasing.
That means that by 2029, the UK Gambling Industry will have increased its GGY from the £15.6bn in 2024, to around £18.3bn by 2029.
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This figurehead data shows that key markets such as remote and non-remote casino gaming, in-shop and online sports betting services, plus lottery games, bingo, poker and more, are all showing increasing signs of future growth potential.
But to fully appreciate how much the UK gambling industry is worth, you need to dig a little deeper into the data to see how much poker rooms, casinos, lotteries and sports betting sites contribute individually to that Gross Gambling Yield figure.
How much does each sector of the UK gambling industry generate?
Using figures collected by the Gambling Commission from April 2023 to March 2024, the last full year of data that is available, the £15.63 billion in GGY, where available, is broken down as follows:
Where possible, we have also broken down how the funds were generated for each type of sector; or in the case of lotteries, how their total sales were divided up.
Online casino gaming – 27.9% (£4.358 billion)
Online Casinos generated their GGY through the following attractions:
- Slots – 81.7%
- Roulette – 7.8%
- Other Games – 4.8%
- Blackjack – 3.7%
- Peer-to-peer poker – 2%
The National Lottery – 21.3%* (£8.184 billion in total sales, not GGY)
Where National Lottery Money was spent:
- Contributions to Good Causes – 43.7%
- Prizes – £28.6%
- Expenses – 27.7%
In shop and on course sports betting – 15.9% (£2.49 billion)
Once again, off course betting markets dominated this particular category as can be seen by the amounts each sector contributed below:
- Off-Course Gaming Machines – 49.6%
- Off-Course Over the Counter Betting – 48.5%
- On-Course Betting – 1.1%
- Pools – 0.8%
Online sports betting – 15.2% (£2.37 billion)
Online Sports betting comprises of many different revenue streams based on particular sports and other attractions available on site. The main contributors to its GGY for 2023/24 were:
- Football Betting – 45.8%
- Horse Racing – 32.5%
- Other Sports Not Listed – 9.1%
- Tennis – 3.6%
- Greyhounds – 3.4%
- Cricket – 2.2%
- Virtual Sports – 2%
- Golf – 0.8%
Non-remote casino gaming – 5.5% (£866 million)
Non-Remote Casinos generated their GGY in two ways.
- Gaming Machines – 25.5%
- Casino Games – 74.5%
Other lotteries – 4.8% (£1.05 billion in total sales, not GGY)
Where Other Lottery Money was spent:
- Contributions to Good Causes – 43.7%
- Prizes – £28.6%
- Expenses – 27.7%
Non-remote arcades – 4.2% (£664 million)
Arcade machines are divided up into four main categories, B3, B4, C and D and each of these categories of machine contributed the following amount.
- B3 – 69.7%
- B4 – 0.1%
- C – 21.3%
- D – 8.9%
Non-remote bingo – 4% (£628 million)
Incredibly, the sale of tickets for Bingo Games for non-remote bingo made up just 37.2% of bingo’s GGY, Gaming Machines contributed 62.7% of that total income.
Online bingo – 1.1% (£167 million)
All Bingo GGY came ostensibly from bingo ticket sales.
All these latest figures show an increase in revenue generated across all sectors of the UK Gambling Industry, but the impact of online betting and gaming can be seen in some other categories.
The impact on the high street
The rise of online gaming has had a negative downturn in terms of premises available on the high street. In 2023 to 2024, the number of premises fell by 0.8%, dropping down to 8,329 premises throughout the United Kingdom.
The vast majority of these premises (71.2%) were betting shops, with Adult Gaming Centres (17.4%) the next biggest type of premises. Bingo had 7.6% of premises, Family Entertainment 2.1% and Casinos 1.7%.
It’s not just premises that have declined in number. There’s also been a drop in licensed operators in the UK of 3.6%. That means there were 2,262 operator licenses in the UK between 2023 and 2024. That is over 1,000 fewer than there were back in 2010 and a drop of 85 from 2022/23.
What is abundantly clear from the data is that people’s betting habits are slowly changing to one more based on remote (online) services, than those based in real-world (non-remote) services.
The future of the UK gambling industry – looking ahead 2025 to 2029
A recent report by Technavio into the future of the UK Gambling market size projected that the industry would continue to undergo annual growth of around 5.4% each year between 2025 and 2029.
It highlighted that while the number of vendors is dropping, it is still a fragmented market, but with a number of major players in each type of industry still dominating, including the likes of the bet365 Group Ltd, Rank Group, Entertain PLC, Caesars Entertainment and Allwyn UK Holding Ltd amongst the bigger names.
With greater uptake of features such as cryptocurrency, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, the release and proliferation of 5G WiFi across the country and the development of more refined software and apps to take advantage of these advances, the future of the UK Gambling Industry looks very rosy indeed.
Just remember, always gamble responsibly and you can bet on a brighter future for gambling in the UK! For more information and advice visit https://www.begambleaware.org
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