UKGC Publishes Further Data Showing Impact of Covid-19 on Gambling Behaviour

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has published further data showing how the further tightening of Covid-19 lockdown measures has impacted online gambling behaviour in Great Britain.

The data reflects the period between March and December, inclusive, and covers both online and (where relevant) some offline gambling operator data, noting that December again saw the closure of all land-based premises.

The latest online operator data for December shows: Activity in the online market grew in a traditionally busy period, with a month-on-month increase of 6% in active accounts and 12% in bets, while gross gambling yield (GGY), increased by 30% as a result of the return of strong margins for operators in real event betting and GGY growth and player number increases in other verticals such as slots.

Slots GGY increased by 13% to nearly £200m. The number of bets also increased (12% to almost 6 billion) along with the number of active accounts (up 6% to almost 3 million), both of which are the highest from within the Covid-19 pandemic period.

The number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour increased by 11% (to 2.5 million) in November to December. The average session length decreased slightly to 21.5 minutes with around 8% of all sessions lasting in excess of 1 hour.