Why Online Gambling in the UK has Risen Significantly Post-pandemic

A report by the University of Bristol, in May 2021, revealed that regular gamblers were six times more likely to place bets during the pandemic than before lockdown. With in-person options limited—and, in many cases, shut down altogether—gamblers simply, and understandably, pivoted and moved online to do their wagering. 

This helped to create a new wave of online gamblers; because they were not able to go out, people typically spent more time at home on the Internet. There was already an abundance of online gambling platforms available at the time, so access to gambling sites was never an issue, even for new players.

In the 2019–2020 financial year, the Gambling Commission found that online gambling was the biggest area of the sector, taking up 40% of the overall gambling market in the UK. In 2020, the results from a survey indicated that one in four adults had gambled online, up drastically from one in six in 2015. 

While the pandemic brought gambling into the spotlight more than ever, the growth hasn’t slowed, and the abundance of gambling platforms at sites like NewCasinos, for example, highlights how big and popular the industry remains. But why has there been a continuous rise in online gambling post-pandemic?

The Struggles

To think that during the pandemic the sole reason that the gambling industry soared was because people had nothing else to do is a false assumption. The average annual UK gambling revenue actually crashed in the 2020–21 Financial Year. 

During the pandemic, people had already proven that they were willing to adapt and shift primarily to online betting, but hitting the industry hard was the suspension of football and horse racing for huge chunks of time. The lack of major sports betting opportunities, from Formula One to rugby, cricket, and everything in between meant that individuals who wanted to gamble still had to find alternatives. 

During the UK’s first lockdown, the searches for generic gambling—like slots, poker, and bingo—spiked, replacing specific searches for online sports betting operators. During the lockdown, it was discovered that 31% of gamblers tried a new format of online gambling. In one way or another, people got what they wanted.

Post Pandemic Numbers

The UK Gambling Commission reported that between 2017 and 2019, gambling participation in the UK stayed fairly stable at around 32% of the adult population. Fast-forward to 2023 and that had skyrocketed to 50% of the adult population gambling each month, a huge jump forward in player participation in just a few years.

That number has continued to steadily grow—shown by the numbers returned from recent research—showing no sign of slowing up. Excluding people who only played the lottery online, the 2023 figures showed that there were around 25 million people who were regular gamblers and, of those, almost 20 million used online gambling platforms (not exclusively, as the numbers also accounted for those who did both online and in-person gambling).

In late 2024, the UK Gambling Commission reported that there had been a 10% year-on-year increase in the total number of online bets and spins, and the online gross gambling yield had also increased by 0.6% year-on-year. 

Sports betting held the most active customers, followed by slots, but casino play easily won out as the form of online gambling that people leaned most towards, with around 75 billion annual bets placed, compared to 3.5 billion online sports bets taken. 

On the Rise Regardless

2020 was an outlier for a large part of gambling statistics in the UK, and it’s important to remember that the industry had already been on a steady annual rise in the preceding decade. Had things continued as normal, there is every chance that the steady rise would have continued anyway, but in some areas, there were unexpected spikes across the industry due to the challenges it faced in 2020. 

The positive trajectory of the UK’s online gambling industry has continued its march upwards since 2020. In the 2019–20 financial year, the value of the UK’s gambling industry was reported as being at £14.2 billion, which was down just 0.6% from the previous financial year. Jump forward a little bit and the 2023–24 financial year then returned figures of  £15.1 billion—not a lot of difference.

Surprisingly, there hasn’t been a massive spike in the volume of online gambling for some time. In the 2017–18 financial year, there were 34.2 million online gambling accounts held, more than double what the number was in 2008–09. But growth takes time, and there has been an average of 30 million UK online gambling accounts held per year since then, pre- and post-pandemic.

New accounts have stayed steady as well, the impacted 2019–20 financial year saw new user accounts actually drop to 29.92 million, and then, in 2021–22, the numbers recovered through a 9% increase to around 32 million, which has been the average for the last six non-pandemic years. 

What Keeps the Fuel Burning?

There are all sorts of ways to look at the industry. The growth has continued post-pandemic, as can be seen in the value of the overall industry and how much user participation has grown. This will naturally vary when things are broken down by age and sex, but overall, the industry continues to thrive and the UK has one of the biggest gambling revenues in the world of all countries.

There has been a shift towards younger players, who have geared the numbers more towards mobile gambling than on laptops and computers. This could partly be helped by the recent surge of advances in handheld technology. The industry has had to fight through some challenges, including tighter regulations on advertising in the last few years, but people want to gamble and more and more sites continue to pop up to provide easy access. 

The security of online gambling has increased drastically and the variety of secure payment options, including e-wallets, have helped make it easier for new customers to get signed up. The appeal of bonuses naturally keeps things strong as well, plus features like live dealer games. The ever-increasing portfolios of slots that pack a punch of variety are a big draw, and of course, those fanciful dreams of jackpots.

But why do Brits play? Results from a survey showed that the majority of players state that it is because it is fun, while the next strongest reason is down to dreaming about landing that elusive big win.