“ The 13 % quarter-on-quarter drop between the £ 638.1m in October to December and the £ 554.9m in January to March is almost certainly due to the pandemic effect”
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Market Monitor The UK
fixtures in the fourth quarter. We can assume that the betting GGY of £ 554.9m for the fourth quarter is too low for what would in the normal course of events be a very busy sporting period. While the Cheltenham Festival got away( just), the betting market would have lost a small chunk of the Premier League season and an element of European competitions.
Hence, the 13 % quarter-onquarter drop between the £ 638.1m in October to December and the £ 554.9m in January to March is almost certainly due to the pandemic effect. As we shall see in the following analysis, betting would not have dropped to zero in those initial weeks of lockdown but it would have been severely impacted, certainly enough to cause an unseasonal drop in the quarter’ s total.
In gaming, it is also likely that the initial shock of the lockdown – and the uncertainty around economic prospects that came with it – impacted the end of the quarter. The overall quarter-on-quarter drop from October to December and January to March of 1.8 % is small, but we can conjecture with some degree of certainty that the quarter would have otherwise seen a quarter-on-quarter rise.
“ The 13 % quarter-on-quarter drop between the £ 638.1m in October to December and the £ 554.9m in January to March is almost certainly due to the pandemic effect”
Chart 12: UK betting GGY 2019 / 20 by quarter(£ m)
660
620
580
540
500 Apr-Jun 19 Jul-Sep 19 Oct-Dec 19 Jan-Mar 20
Chart 13: UK casino 2019 / 20 by quarter GGY(£ m)
860
850
840
830
THE UK GAMBLING SECTOR DURING LOCKDOWN
As part of its efforts to answer fears about an explosion of problem
820
810 Apr-Jun 19 Jul-Sep 19 Oct-Dec 19 Jan-Mar 20
Source: UK Gambling Commission iGB Market Monitor