The Gambling Commission has published its Q2 industry statistics from July to September 2025, as well as its latest statistics on gambling participation as part of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) between July and October 2025.
Q2 results
Between July and September 2025, licensed operators in the UK created a total gross gambling yield (GGY) of £4.3bn ($5.82bn), an increase of 7% when compared year-on-year.
Excluding all reported lotteries, the total GGY was £3.2bn, almost exactly in line with the above, with an increase of 6.6%.
The total number of premises active during this period was 8,254, with 5,782 of these being betting shops.
Across all of these premises, the non-remote betting sector brought in £592m, or 48.2% of the total non-remote GGY.
The total GGY for the remote casino, betting and bingo sector was £2bn, with 69% or £1.4bn of this coming from remote casinos alone.
As for the land-based sector, the total GGY from arcades, betting, bingo and casinos was £1.2bn; and the total number of gambling machines active in the UK reached 190,965.
Contributions to good causes through the National Lottery hit £402.9m, while contributions to good causes through other large society lotteries were £122.4m.
The Gambling Commission previously released its FY25 and Q1 report back in November, where it discussed the upcoming changes to the GSGB.
The next quarterly results, covering October to December 2025, are expected to release on 4 June, 2026.
The latest GSGB figures
Also released today were the latest results from the Gambling Survey, conducted by the National Centre for Social Research.
A sample of 5,883 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed between 30 June and 31 October 2025 for Wave 3.
The survey found that 48% of these participants had gambled in the previous four weeks, which is consistent with the 47% figure from Wave 2.
When participants who only played the lottery were excluded, the gambling participation rate fell to 27%, meaning that one-fifth of adults who gamble in the UK only play the National Lottery or other charity-based draws.
Participation in gambling activities was recorded as highest among those aged between 45 and 64, although when lottery draws were excluded once again, this fell to those aged between 25 and 34.
Men represented 52% of gamblers, while women were slightly less at 45%; the remaining participants did not provide their gender when asked.
Lottery draws were the most popular activity, followed by scratchcards with 12% of participants, betting with 10% and online instant games with 7%.
While there was little discrepancy between men and women playing scratchcards or online instant games, although 16% of men took part in betting compared to only 4% of women.
Horseracing figures fell 7% from Wave 2 to a total of 4% of participants, although this is likely due to there being more significant meets held during the earlier wave compared to this one.
The online gambling participation rate was 39%, or 16% when lottery-only players are removed; while in-person gambling rates were 28%, or 17% when lottery players are removed.
Gambling ‘for the chance to win big money and ‘because it’s fun’ were the most popular reasons given, but the 18 to 24 bracket was the only one to place ‘because it’s fun’ over any monetary gain.
Finally, 42% of participants felt positive about their time gambling over the last 12 months, while a further 35% felt neutral.
Unsurprising to anyone in the industry, a neat 5% of those asked said they ‘hated’ their recent gambling participation.
Analysis
Helen Bryce, Gambling Commission Head of Statistics, accompanied these results with some insights into how they can be digested together.
For example, the GGY during this quarter rose 6.6% to £4.3bn, but the number of people participating in gambling remained steady at 48%.
Despite remote gambling making up 69% of the GGY, more people (17%) participated in land-based gambling when lottery-only results were removed than online (16%).
However, Bryce also urges caution in comparing data sets so directly.
She explains: “As with all data triangulations, care needs to be taken to ensure like-for-like comparisons are being made. One example which highlights this is fruit and slot machines.
“The GGY generated from machines located in gambling premises across the country was £680m in July to September 2025 but from a consumer perspective this is only one part of the picture.
“GSGB data estimates that around 1.9 million adults had played fruit and slot machines in the past four weeks, of which two-fifths (44%) played them in bars, clubs and pubs – data which isn’t captured by our industry statistics. It’s important, therefore, to understand the ‘full picture’ when drawing conclusions.”
Only 7% of all participants recorded that they gambled ‘to impress other people’, while 33% said it was a hobby they did with friends or family
