Higher stakes couldn’t prevent UK online gambling from suffering its first-ever revenue decline, the UK Gambling Commission has revealed.
According to newly-released statistics, total gambling revenue in Britain dropped 0.3% year-on-year in the year ending on 31st March 2019. The total figure was £14.36 billion. Meanwhile, remote gambling revenue declined by 0.6% to £5.3bn.
More stakes, less money
Despite a 2.7% increase in stakes, the yield from remote betting went down by 10% to £2.3bn. This form of gambling made up a large chunk of Britain’s gross gambling yield, totalling 37.1% in that respect.
Football was the most popular sport for remote bettors to wager on. While the 2018 World Cup produced a 5.2% increase in stakes, total handle went down by 1.5%. The total yield was £991.2m. Horse racing was second on this list, yielding £522.1m. This represented a 15% decrease, even though stakes rose by 8.5% to £9.64bn.
All change
UK online gambling has had an eventful year. Gambling tax revenue in the six months up to 30th September grew, partially due to the introduction of Remote Gaming Duty (RGD). It covered the shifts caused by new fixed-odds betting terminal (FOBT) regulations. The statistics mentioned in this article don’t take either of these into account.
The decline’s extent could be down to a number of factors, according to Gambling consultancy Regulus Partners. They said:
“This is still a big stop in betting, given the ‘knowns’ of the public market in a highly-consolidated sector.”
Other key statistics
Although National Lottery, land-based casino and bingo gross gaming yields (GGY) all went down too, growth was reported in other gaming areas.
GGY from gaming arcades and adult arcades both rose, by 1.8% and 3.2% respectively. Gambling software was also profitable on the whole. This industry brought in £823m’s worth of revenue, demonstrating a 7% yearly increase.
