The UK Gambling Commission has published its final Market Insights dataset, covering Q4 of financial year 2025-26 (January to March 2026), showing total online gross gambling yield of £1.55bn, up 7% year-on-year.
Published on 21 May 2026, the report marks the last in a series running since March 2020. The Commission confirmed it will not replace the dataset on a like-for-like basis, instead expanding its Regular Feed of Operator Core Data project to capture ongoing operator-level gambling behaviour. The dataset covers the largest online operators in Britain, representing approximately 70% of the total online sector.
Slots Drive Online Growth
Slots were the primary driver of online GGY in Q4. Slots GGY reached £773m, up 12% year-on-year. The number of spins increased 7% to 25.1 billion, while average monthly active accounts grew 6% to 4.8 million.
That growth in active accounts stands against an overall online market where average monthly actives fell 1% to 13.4 million. Total online bets and spins across all verticals reached 26.8 billion, also up 7%.
This is the fourth consecutive quarter in which the Commission’s data covers the period since maximum stake limits for online slots came into force. The £5 limit for all adults went live 9 April 2025; the £2 limit for players aged 18 to 24 followed on 21 May 2025.
Despite those restrictions, GGY and spin volumes continued upward. The session-level data tells a different story. Spins per session fell from 136 to 124 year-on-year, and GGY per session declined from £4.01 to £3.82. Players are spinning more often across more sessions, but spending less per session.
Elsewhere in the online vertical, real event betting GGY rose just 1% to £600m. Bets fell 8% and average monthly active accounts dropped 5%, continuing a trend of declining sports betting volume. Online casino recorded GGY of £153.9m, poker £10.4m, virtual betting £9.2m, and esports £3.9m.
Safer Gambling Indicators Improve
The safer gambling picture in Q4 showed measurable movement. Online slots sessions lasting longer than one hour fell 12% year-on-year to 8.9 million. Total sessions over the same period increased 18% to 202 million, reducing the proportion of long sessions from 5.9% to 4.4% of all activity. Average session length fell two minutes to 15 minutes.
The Commission reported 5.2 million customer interactions during the quarter, a 32% increase year-on-year. Automated interactions accounted for the majority, with several operators having refined their markers of harm algorithms during the prior year. Direct interactions by operators fell 9%, a shift the Commission attributes to those algorithmic changes rather than reduced operator engagement overall.
The Commission noted that methodology changes by some operators on session length tracking will affect year-on-year comparisons on session metrics, and encouraged readers to treat those comparisons with some caution.
Retail Betting Contracts
The land-based sector continued to soften. Offline GGY fell 5% to £527m in Q4, with total bets and spins down 1% to 3.1 billion.
Over-the-counter betting recorded the sharpest decline. OTC bets fell 3% to 125 million, while OTC GGY dropped 18% to £125m. Self-service betting terminals moved in the opposite direction: SSBT bets rose 6% to 42.9 million, though GGY grew only 0.6% to £126m, indicating higher volume at lower average stakes.
Gaming machine GGY in retail premises was essentially flat at £276m, a 0.02% year-on-year increase. Average spend per session edged up by 29 pence to £12.48, and the average number of spins per machines session increased by two to 132. The proportion of machine sessions lasting more than one hour held at 2.68%, marginally below 2.71% in the equivalent quarter the prior year.
Final Dataset and What Comes Next
The Commission confirmed this is the last publication in the Market Insights series. Rab Grewal, senior manager for market and regulatory insight at the Commission, commented on the closure of the dataset and the transition ahead.
We would like to thank all the operators who have contributed over the years. Their commitment, during an initially challenging time was invaluable in assessing risk. Looking ahead, we will be expanding the Regular Feed of Operator Core Data project which collects data from operators on customers’ gambling behaviour. We see this as an important part of our approach to meeting the government’s expectations for improving the use of data and analytics to deliver more effective regulation.
The transition to the Regular Feed follows a period of sustained regulatory tightening across the British market. The Commission issued £18m in penalties during 2025 and introduced new deposit limit rules as part of a broader consumer protection overhaul. The expanded data collection mechanism is expected to give the Commission more granular, real-time visibility into player behaviour as those reforms bed in.
Great Britain’s online gambling revenue fell 2% in the equivalent period of calendar Q4 2025, making the 7% increase recorded in Q4 FY2025/26 the clearest rebound in the dataset since stake limits were introduced. Whether the Regular Feed will capture those dynamics with the same granularity its predecessor built over six years will be a question for the Commission’s next data release.
Source: UK Gambling Commission
