The UK Gaming Commission’s statistics for the fiscal year concluding on March 31, 2020, reveal a substantial decline in B2 category gaming machine earnings after the maximum wager on B2 machines (or fixed-odds betting terminals) was lowered to £2 in April 2019.
This resulted in a minor decrease in overall gambling revenue (wagers minus payouts) by 0.6% annually, reaching £14.22 billion (€15.83 billion/$18.97 billion).
Physical gambling establishments were also shuttered for the final 11 days of the reporting period due to the emergence of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which led to a significant reduction in sporting events.
Online gambling, encompassing sports wagering, bingo, and casino games, was the primary revenue generator, contributing £5.68 billion, a rise of 8.1%.
The channel’s growth was fueled by robust performance from online sports betting, which saw revenue surge by 15.5% to £2.33 billion, but still trailed behind casino games, which experienced revenue growth of 3.7% to £3.18 billion. Meanwhile, bingo revenue increased marginally by 0.5% to £176.8 million.
Shifting to land-based gambling, gaming machine revenue plummeted by 25.6% annually to £2.09 billion, following the reduction of the maximum wager on B2 category gaming machines from £100 to £2 in April 2019.
This led to a substantial drop in gaming machine profits to £12.1 million, a decline of 99.0%.
Enhanced income somewhat counteracted this pattern, especially for B3 machines, where GGY increased by 39.5% to £1.54 billion.
Expansion was slower for B1 machines, with a maximum wager of £5, with earnings rising to £214.8 million, while B4, C and D terminals all experienced a decrease in profits.
Overall betting shop income declined by 26.4% to £2.4 billion due to a reduction in B2 stakes, while the number of shops operating at the end of the year decreased by 7.7% to 7,681.
Bingo halls also reported a year-over-year decline in revenue, down 5.7% to £636 million, while casino revenue fell by 4.0% to £1.02 billion. This signifies that arcades were the only land-based venues to report an increase in income for the year, with revenue rising by 8.8% to £4.773 billion.
In the meantime, the lottery sector witnessed growth in both the large society lotteries and the National Lottery. Excluding the lottery operated by Camelot, revenue rose by 13.3% to £611.6 million, but the total raised for charitable causes decreased by 10.7% to £3.668 billion.
Conversely, National Lottery sales totaled £7.9 billion, of which £5.45 billion was retail sales and £2.46 billion was online sales. This generated total revenue of £3.4 billion, an increase of 10.4%.
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