UK Gambling Market Shifts as Slots Grow and Betting Declines
The Gambling Commission has released new operator-sourced data charting how gambling activity in Great Britain has shifted through to December 2025.
LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE:The dataset, published on 5 February 2026, draws on returns submitted directly by licensed operators and covers both online gambling and land-based betting premises on Britain’s high streets. It spans activity from March 2020 through to the end of 2025 and focuses on year-on-year comparisons for the third quarter of the 2025-26 financial year, measured against the same period in 2024-25.
Unlike the Commission’s broader industry statistics series, the operator dataset excludes free bets and bonuses and does not capture the full universe of licensees. The regulator cautioned that the two publications are not directly comparable and urged stakeholders to refer to the underlying source material when assessing longer-term trends.
Related: UK Gambling Commission Annual Report Highlights Costly Transition
Online Gambling: More Activity, Softer Yields
According to the data, total online gross gambling yield (GGY) for Q3, covering October to December, reached £1.5 billion, representing a 2 percent decline compared with the same quarter a year earlier. That contraction came despite a rise in activity: total bets and spins increased 6 percent year-on-year to 27.4 billion.
At the same time, the average number of monthly active online accounts fell by 2 percent to 12.7 million. The Commission noted that active account figures can involve a degree of double counting across verticals, as a single customer may be recorded multiple times if they gamble across different products in the same period.
Real-event betting was a notable drag on performance. GGY from betting on live sporting events fell 18 percent year-on-year to £530 million, alongside a 6 percent decline in the number of bets placed and a 7 percent drop in average monthly active accounts.
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By contrast, online slots continued to expand, marking the third consecutive quarter of record highs within this dataset. Slots GGY increased 10 percent year-on-year to £788 million, while the number of spins rose 7 percent to 25.7 billion. Average monthly active slots accounts also climbed, increasing 5 percent to 4.6 million.
The quarter was the third since the introduction of mandatory online slot stake limits. A £5 maximum stake for adults aged 25 and over came into force in April 2025, followed by a £2 limit for 18–24-year-olds in May. While the Commission did not directly attribute performance changes to the new limits, it highlighted a continued decline in longer-duration sessions.
Sessions lasting more than one hour fell 16 percent year-on-year to 8.9 million, and average session length dropped by two minutes to 16 minutes. Around 4.4 percent of all sessions exceeded an hour, down from 6.2 percent in the same quarter last year. The Commission added that refinements to session-length methodology by some operators may affect year-on-year comparability.
Land-Based Betting Remains Under Pressure
Performance at betting premises continued to soften. GGY from land-based betting shops declined 7 percent year-on-year to £549 million, while total bets and spins slipped 1 percent to 3.1 billion. The figures reflect ongoing structural pressures on high-street betting, including changes in consumer behaviour and the sustained shift toward online play.
The Commission said further updates and supplementary evidence will follow as part of its wider programme of data publication linked to the Gambling Act Review. Stakeholders were encouraged to monitor future releases as regulatory reforms continue to reshape gambling participation and product mix across Great Britain.
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