Financial results are always important but a close eye is definitely needed to be kept on the UK’s online casino industry. Stricter regulation and increasing financial costs are being experienced by the gambling industry.
Last year saw a new mandatory levy introduced for the UK’s gambling industry. There are continual concerns about levels of gambling harm. Gambling companies reviewed by britishgambler.co.uk had been making involuntary payments with monies going towards research into and treatment of gambling harm.
However, the UK government decided not every company was making sufficient contributions and decided to introduce a mandatory levy based on the Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) of companies. Last month saw an announcement that the levy had to date raised a total of £120 million.
Any visit to an online gambling platform is likely to see players heading to the slots section of the site. They are huge revenue earners for online sites as will be shown in more detail later in this article. The problem is that they are also considered to be highly addictive, particularly for younger players. Many who seek treatment for gambling harm often mention online slots as being part of their problem.
Last March and April saw new maximum stakes introduced for online slot games. Those aged between 18 and 24 are now no longer able to stake more than £2 per spin and for older players it is £5. How would the new maximum stakes affect the finances of online casinos once they came into force?
The answers came in the last two financial reports published by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) that covered Q2 and Q3 of the financial year 2025 to 2026. Q2 was the first that produced results in which the entire three months had the new maximum stakes in place. The total GGY for online sites was £1.42 billion, up 8 percent from the same period in the previous financial year.
Slots GGY rose 9 percent to £747 million with the number of spins being made being 4 percent higher Year-on-Year (YoY). Both the GGY and spins made were new records for the second consecutive quarter. There was a 15 percent fall in the number of slots sessions that lasted for over an hour and the overall session for players fell from 16 to 15 minutes.
Q3 saw an online total GGY of £1.5 billion being reported. Although that was higher than the Q2 figure, it was down 2 percent from the Q3 GGY for the previous financial year. Again, it appeared that the new maximum stake for online slots was not causing problems. Online slots GGY were £788 million (£33 million higher than in Q2) and up 10 percent from the figure 12 months ago.
With the number of spins rising by 7 percent to 25.7 billion, again GGY and total spins set records, though sessions lasting longer than an hour and average session lengths were both down. Just how accurate the latter figures are is hard to assess as a couple of online operators have changed their session length methodology in the past 12 months.
It seems therefore that the new maximum stakes are not having a major effect on online slots GGY. There are more problems that the UK’s online gambling industry must face this year. The Autumn Budget held last November included an announcement that remote gaming duty will rise from 21 percent to 40 percent from April 2026. A further tax increase for sports betting will take place in 2027. Betfred had expressed concerns over such increases.
Another financial blow that looks to be on its way is in the level of UKGC licences. There is currently a consultation period taking place that is discussing how high any rise will be. It is possible this could be an average 30 percent. Additional funds are needed by the UKGC to help them meet the costs of their work.
With these future payments on the way and recent changes in how bonuses can be offered, operating in the UK is likely to become more difficult. Another problem is the increasing number of people who are opting to gamble with unlicensed and unregulated sites.
Bet365 are one of the leading gambling companies in the UK. They reported a fall in total profit for the 2024-25 financial year from £506.5 million to £338.5 million. A key reason for this wasn’t stricter regulation but rising operating costs as they seek to invest in other global markets.
Entain are also far more than a company that operates in the UK market. They have enjoyed great success in the USA with BetMGM. In October of last year, the company said it was “increasingly confident in delivering consistent underlying growth and generating more than £0.5bn of annual cash from 2028.”
It may well be that the worrying situation in the UK may lead to companies placing more emphasis on overseas markets to try and maintain or improve their profit figures.