Licensed gambling businesses in Great Britain generated a gross gambling yield of £17.5 billion between April 2025 and March 2026, up 4.4% on the previous year. The Gambling Commission published these official statistics on 17 September 2026.
Online casino, betting and bingo account for £8.3 billion of that total, up 6.9%. Land-based venues (arcades, betting shops, bingo halls and casinos) account for £4.9 billion, up 1.1%. The remaining £4.3 billion comes from lotteries.
What is gross gambling yield?
Gross gambling yield (GGY) is the money operators keep from stakes once winnings have been paid out. It is measured before their operating costs, so it is not a profit figure, and it is not the total amount staked either.
A £10 bet that loses adds £10 to the operator’s yield. If the same £10 bet wins at evens, it returns £20 to the customer and reduces the operator’s yield by £10.
How much comes from online betting?
Online betting generated £2.4 billion in yield. Football leads with £1.2 billion, ahead of horse racing at £769.3 million.
Online casino games generated more than twice as much: £5.7 billion, of which £4.8 billion came from slots. Online bingo added £147.8 million.
Land-based betting also generated £2.4 billion, down 3.3%. Gaming machines in betting shops make up almost half of it: 49.4%, or £1.2 billion.
How many betting shops are left?
Great Britain had 5,617 betting shops at the end of March 2026, 208 fewer than a year earlier (a 3.6% drop). According to the Commission, it is the 12th reporting period in a row in which the number has fallen.
Across all types of licensed gambling premises, the total fell by 2.0% to 8,081.
How many online gambling accounts are there?
Online casino, betting and bingo operators recorded 32.4 million new account registrations over the year, down 3.0%. At the end of the January to March 2026 quarter, 25.7 million accounts were active.
These figures count accounts, not people: a customer registered with three bookmakers counts three times.
Customers held £886.6 million in their online accounts at the end of the quarter, 13.9% less than a year earlier. How that money is protected depends on each operator, as explained in our article on what happens to your balance when a bookmaker loses its licence.
Where do these figures come from?
They come from the data that licensed operators report to the Gambling Commission. The yield figures cover gambling by customers in Great Britain with licensed operators, so gambling on unlicensed sites is not included.
All the welcome offers in our bookmaker comparison come from operators holding a Gambling Commission licence.
Safer gambling
Gambling should remain a leisure activity. If it stops feeling that way, the National Gambling Helpline is free and open 24 hours a day on 0808 8020 133. Other tools are listed on our safer gambling page.
Sources
Gambling Commission, Commission releases gambling industry statistics for 2025 to 2026, 17 September 2026, and the annual report for April 2025 to March 2026. Consulted on 25 September 2026.