The UK Gambling Commission has released its latest data report which reveals that online gambling operators generated a gross return (GGY) of £560.2m for the month of April. This is an increase of 2.6% compared to the previous month.
The commission has now compiled more than a year’s worth of data on the industry since the first UK shutdown, but noted that year-on-year comparisons had little value, saying:
Year-to-year comparisons are not recommended due to the different circumstances affecting both years. For example, retail was operating until March 20, 2020, but completely closed in March 2021.
This is the second highest monthly revenue figure since the UK regulator first started publishing monthly operator data – the highest month was December 2020.
The regulator also reported that online real event betting GGY increased by 7% to over £267m. This was undoubtedly related to public interest in the 2021 English Grand National as active players increased by 12% month-on-month to 6.7 million players. But despite the higher number of active players, bets placed dropped to 344.3 million.
Esports increased by 2.7% to £1.9m while online slots GGY came in at £202.0m. Other casino games generated revenues of £71m for the same period.
Slot spins fell 1% to 6.1 billion in the period while bets on other casino games fell 3.3% to 265 million while virtual games fell 7.2% to 17.1 million.
There was a decline in the number of active players for slots and other casino games as operators reported figures of 3.2 million and 2.2 million players for each vertical. The number of active online poker players fell by 11% to 300,520.
Last week, the Gambling Commission released full revenue data for UK gambling licensees for the six months from April to September 2020. The figures revealed an overall decline in gambling revenue due to the pandemic. GGY for the reported period was £5.89bn and online gaming accounted for £3.08bn, up 9.6% on the previous year.
