UK online gambling sector grows 10% to £4.7bn
Casino and sports betting both up 11%, with slots revenue worth almost as much as the entire sports betting sector
The UK remote gambling sector grew by 10.1% to £4.7bn for the year to March 2017, according to new figures released today by the Gambling Commission.
The online sector accounted for 34% of the entire UK gambling market, up 1.5 percentage points from the comparative period in 2016.
Both sports betting and casino grew at 11%, although casino remained the largest vertical within the online sector, at £2.6bn, or 56% of GGY.
The majority of that came from slots which generated £1.7bn, up 8% year-on-year in the April 2016 and March 2017 period.
Meanwhile, poker grew 3% to £101m and bingo was up 8% to £162m.
GGY for remote betting totalled £1.9bn, or 27% of the total remote mix, and is dominated by football and horse betting at 31% and 20% respectively.
There were 28.87 million active customer accounts in the remote sector across all verticals, with 31.85 million new account registrations during the period.
Regulus Partners pointed out that while active customers were up 25%, it came with a 12% decline in average revenue per account of £162.
“This is perilously close to average market CPAs of c. £120,” the analyst noted.
The overall UK gambling industry was worth £13.7bn.
Commission executive director Tim Miller said: “These latest figures show that the gambling market is continuing to grow, particularly in the online sector.
“However, with such growth comes a great responsibility for operators to prevent gambling-related harm to all consumers and the public. We would urge all gambling businesses to be acutely aware that as their market grows so too will our focus on ensuring that consumers are protected.”
The Commission last week launched a new three year strategy, calling for operators to put consumers first.