UK online gamblers had a tough time during the COVID19 pandemic. All the major sporting events were either canceled or postponed and that tanked the revenue of all the online gambling operators. However, in June, major sports events came back without the audience of course. This has resulted in a great boost to the revenue of the gambling operators in June.
The UKGC or the UK Gambling Commission released the details on Monday. The Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) from real event sports betting has hit £217.5mn in June. This is a 115% increase from the statistics of May which was reported to be £101.3mn. However, the data is collected from the biggest operators of the UK which represents almost 80% of the market share.
The so-called ‘real’ sports wagering took a hit however in June as the online slots GGY fell by 9.6% from May to £166.5mn.
The other casino products also slipped by 12% to £68.5mn. The virtual sports betting wasn’t really promising either and was off by 15.2% to £9.6mn. The eSports also slid by one quarter to £3.5mn as per the data released by the UKGC.
The online poker honeymoon seems to be over in the UK. It tumbled by 36% from May to £11.7mn. The online active online poker players also fell by one-quarter on a month-on-month comparison in June. The active online slots players rose by less than 1% in June from May. Interestingly, however, the bets placed were 5.2% lesser than May in June. It seems the budget has shifted to a real sports event.
The data reveals that the online slots session exceeded one hour was down by 5% in June. The poker’s decline has also reduced the online gaming session average down by 1 minute which now sits at 21 minutes. This is the first decline since March 2020 for the online gaming session.
The UKGC has promoted vigorous monitoring of customer activity to understand the signs of problem gambling. It has been noted that the customer interactions have increased by 12% in June on a month-on-month comparison. Out of this, 6% of the interactions are direct with the staff, and remaining have interacted with automated systems like chatbot or others.
As the UK market shows signs of recovery, the racing bookmakers are also pulling up their shocks. A two-week pilot program is planned from Tuesday on Beverley, Fontwell, and Kempton tracks. This pilot program is intended to find how bookies can wager while following pandemic guidelines.
Given that the punters are not welcome at the track at this point, horse owners would be the only one to put a wager. However, the trial is to get a broader picture.
Source: https://calvinayre.com/2020/08/17/business/uk-online-sports-betting-roars-back/