UK Gambling Industry Generated £17.5bn in 2025 to 2026, Commission Says

^{The Gambling Commission's headquarters in Birmingham, where the regulator compiles the annual industry statistics report. (Photo: Bs0u10e01 / Wikimedia Commons)}

Britain's gambling industry generated a total Gross Gambling Yield of £17.5 billion in the financial year running from April 2025 to March 2026, the Gambling Commission said on 17 September 2026, a 4.4% rise on the previous 12 months.

The figure, published in the regulator's annual Industry Statistics report, covers every licensed operator serving customers in Great Britain across betting, bingo, casino and lottery products. Stripped of all reported lotteries, GGY still reached £13.2 billion, up 4.7% year on year.

The Commission published the annual figures alongside quarterly data for the fourth quarter of the reporting year, January to March 2026, and the latest wave of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain, releasing three separate data sets on the same day.

Remote Casino Sector Drives the Increase

Online gambling remained the biggest single driver of growth. The Remote Casino, Betting and Bingo sector, which includes live casino games and other digital products, posted GGY of £8.3 billion, up 6.9% on the year before.

Land-based gambling grew far more slowly by comparison. Arcades, betting shops, bingo halls and casinos combined generated £4.9 billion, a 1.1% rise, as the retail sector continued to contract in size even as it held its revenue broadly steady.

Fewer Shops, Fewer Machines

The total number of licensed gambling premises in Great Britain fell 2.0% to 8,081. Betting shops alone dropped 3.6% to 5,617, continuing a long-running decline in the high street estate as operators shift customers toward online products, including casino bonuses designed to draw players away from retail venues.

Ben Haden, the Commission's Director of Research and Policy, said the shifts in this year's data reflect several factors playing out at once rather than any single cause.

'The market shifts that we see in industry data trends, and this year is no different, are complex and will be down to a mix of factors that need more than one source to unpick,' Haden said in the announcement. 'I welcome our capacity to publish industry data alongside the Gambling Survey for Great Britain to encourage and assist in the consideration of key questions from these different perspectives.'

A Harmonised Data Set

The Commission noted that operators changed how they report data through their regulatory returns in July 2024, harmonising reporting periods across all licensees. That change makes this year's annual report the first full 12-month cycle collected entirely under the new, standardised timetable, giving the regulator a cleaner base for comparing operators against each other.

The growth in online yield comes as the Commission and other regulators continue to scrutinise the sector's fastest-growing product; the UK's online slots reforms have already drawn attention from watchdogs in other markets.

The report and its accompanying data file, which includes sector-by-sector figures stretching back to the financial year ending March 2009, sit alongside an interactive Power BI dashboard the Commission has published for anyone wanting to explore the numbers sector by sector.

The regulator said the figures are aimed at a wide audience, from government and licensed operators to trade bodies, academic researchers and consumers. Media enquiries about the report are being directed to the Commission's press office; no date has been set yet for the next quarterly update.