The size of the gambling industry

The UK is one of the largest and most transparent gambling markets in the world. The key scale metric is GGY (Gross Gambling Yield), the gross revenue of operators after paying winnings to players. According to official UKGC statistics for the fiscal year April 2023 - March 2024, the total GGY amounted to £15.6 billion, that is, "more than £14 billion" is already an underestimated, cautious bar.

1) Online and terrestrial segments: revenue structure

Remote (online) casino/betting/bingo: £6.9bn GGY for 2023/24 - growth driver thanks to slots and live formats.

Terrestrial sectors (arcades, betting shops, bingo halls, casinos): £4.6 billion GGY over the same period; recovery after covid years has stabilized.

Market total: £15.6bn GGY for 2023/24; of which £11.5 billion - if you exclude all lotteries (for purity of comparison with the "game" verticals).

2) 2024/25 momentum: What fresh quarterly data shows

• Q1 2025/26 (April-June 2025): GGY online is about £1.49 billion (+ 2% yoy), with the number of spins/bets growing faster than the active base - a sign of increasing game intensity.
• Q4 2024/25 (January-March 2025): online GGY quarter - ~ £1.45 billion (+ 7% year-on-year), leader - slots.

Conclusion: even at the "high base" of 2023/24, the market retains growth, and the benchmark "£14 + billion per year" is appropriate to consider the lower limit for assessing the current scale.

3) What's behind the numbers: Factors of scale

Mature online showcase. The strong position of slots and live games in mobile UX supports a stable contribution to GGY.

Wide offline ecosystem. Thousands of ground points (betting shops, AGC/arcades, bingo halls, casinos) provide a "long tail" of turnover and local involvement.

Strict compliance and transparency. Strict UKGC rules build trust in products and reporting, which is important for sustainable metrics.

4) How to interpret GGY (and why estimates differ)

GGY - gross revenue of operators (bets minus winnings), not turnover of bets and not net profit.

Publications sometimes give figures "with lotteries" and "without lotteries." For comparison of "game" verticals, it is more correct to operate with a value of £11.5 billion without lotteries for 2023/24; together with all lotteries - £15.6 billion.

Parliamentary and media estimates often round the scale of the industry to "~ £14 billion per year," which reflects the order of magnitude, but is inferior in freshness to the official data of the UKGC.

5) Trends for 2025

Shift to online slots/live: slot growth, active product competition and new show formats.

Offline stabilization: revenue retention in AGC/betting shops with stricter regulation of content and limits.

Focus on safer gambling: the introduction of availability checks and marketing control do not slow down the long-term scale, but increase the predictability of the market.

According to the latest official data, the British gambling industry generates about £15.6 billion GGY per year (2023/24), which means that the wording "more than £14 billion" is conservative and correct for generalized materials. The online segment continues to add to the database, offline is stable, and the strict regulatory regime of UKGC ensures high transparency of indicators and confidence in the market.