Latest UKGC Data Shows Increase in Online Activity, Decrease in Revenue

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has provided an update on the revenue status of online gambling in the country. This latest data includes corrections to information previously published and covers the third fiscal quarter. That corresponds to the last quarter of 2021, in which online gross gaming yield (GGY) saw a financial drop despite an uptick in activity.

UK’s Online Gaming Market Slips

The quarter’s online total GGY was £1.2 billion ($1.63 billion). This was due to the December addition of £421 million ($573.61 million). However, the third-quarter results include a decrease of 6% compared to the second quarter.

Despite the decrease in GGY, there were some increases in the market. Online slot play yield, for example, increased by 1% to £568 million ($773.9 million). This was due to an increase of 3% in overall spins to 18.2 billion. The UKGC also indicated that there was a 5% increase of active players in the quarter, with the final tally coming in at 9.8 million.

In addition to the increased number and length of spins, gamblers also spent more time in front of the online one-armed bandits. To just over eight million, the number of sessions that lasted more than an hour grew by 8%. Gamblers played the slots for an average of 19 minutes, with just 7% of sessions lasting longer than an hour.

The UKGC points out that the data represents the total activity across all verticals. Therefore, active accounts may be counted more than once if they are involved in more than one vertical.

A quarter-on-quarter comparison can also lead to double counting in active accounts’ data points. An account that has been active for more than two months will be included twice in the quarter total. This applies only to active accounts, and not any other data-points.

Update to Terms & Conditions

Just ahead of the financial update, the UKGC issued a new mandate. It ordered all gaming operators to update their terms and conditions (T&C) in order to make them more “fair” and “transparent.” The regulator hints that it will start taking action against operators that hide behind their T&C and use language that is “unintelligible.”

Operators, under certain circumstances, also can’t include conditions solely in the T&C section on the website anymore. The information must be prominently displayed, and access to the T&C must also be included in promotional banners. These can’t send users directly to a signup page anymore.

It will be difficult for the updated guidance to be enforced. There will be friction about the interpretation of T&C language because “literacy levels vary significantly,” as the regulator points out. However, the UKGC is determined to make sure that all operators comply with consumer protection laws and the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice.