The road ahead; UKGC CEO speaks at ICE 2025
CEO of the Gambling Commission (UKGC), Andrew Rhodes, addressed a packed audience at ICE Barcelona on 21 January. Each year, this speech provides a broad overview of what’s happening in the UK gambling industry, right from the top.
This year, Rhodes focused on record-breaking revenues, changing betting habits, regulatory crackdowns, and upcoming changes too. He painted a positive picture of not just profitability, but the UKGC’s presence as a force to be reckoned with for unscrupulous operators.
The numbers: record-high revenue and participation
Rhodes opened with a striking figure: Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) in Great Britain has hit a record £15.6 billion. While this hints at a booming industry, participation levels have remained almost unchanged, with 48% of Brits (roughly 22.5 million) still gambling. A great deal of Rhodes’ speech focused on the income that the gambling industry is making and the upsides and pitfalls of this level of profit.
Horse racing was one of the standouts, achieving the highest GGY on record from results released in November. While this is excellent news for an industry that’s been understandably worried about the effects of stricter legislation around gambling advertisements, Rhodes did point out that these statistics don’t take into account inflation.
Not keeping up with inflation
Rhodes spent a great deal of time emphasising that though we’re seeing record GGY, if you adjust for inflation, then the industry's share of consumer spending is actually falling. This was a fascinating point, because gambling is one of the few areas where spending doesn’t need to increase in line with increasing costs. If someone places a £10 bet on the horses at the weekend, they aren’t going to increase their bet to £11 a few months later to factor in inflation. So, how does the industry make up the shortfall? Rhodes rightly points out that factors like ‘margins, return to player ratios, offers’ can all be changed, but at the end of the day, it is always up to the consumer how much they want to wager.
Growing appeal of lotteries & prize draws
We’ve touched before on lotteries being gambling for non-gamblers, and for the first time ever they passed the £1 billion mark. This is a huge chunk of GGY and Rhodes pointed out that tailored questions that were added to the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) show that participation in prize draws sit only just behind betting.
Levy discrepancy
For me, this was one of the most interesting parts of Rhodes’ speech. In terms of legislation, there are more loopholes and grey areas in lottery and prize draw legislation, than there are in casino and sports betting regulations. So, if consumers continue to favour these above ‘traditional’ gambling, then surely stronger legislation, or perhaps larger levies should be implemented. As of April 2025, online casinos will face a 1.1% levy, land-based betting operators sit at 0.5%, yet External Lottery Managers (ELMs) contribute just 0.1%. Given that prize draws alone passed the £1 billion mark for the first time, is this discrepancy justified? There’s no clear reason why lotteries are given an almost free pass. There’s actually an argument for lottery-style products facing higher levies, as they attract non-traditional gamblers.
Sports betting expands beyond football & racing
Rhodes devoted a little time to exploring the rise in betting on, predominantly, US-based sports such as basketball, American football and hockey. There’s also been an increase in cricket betting. This combination feels disconnected at first, but I can’t help but wonder if we are developing an appetite for increasingly more exotic and speculative markets - and crucially longer odds.
New types of betting
Betting on everything from the speed the ball travels in cricket to the colour of the Gatorade at the Super Bowl. These are the kinds of bets that professional bettors (or those primarily concerned with profit) simply never make. However, this new wave of gamblers seems to be increasingly interested in novelty and entertainment value over hitting numbers. After all, high volatility slots with poor RTPs but massive max wins receive far more attention than those with a good RTP and a low max. The same is true for the one-in-a-million football accumulators, and what else? Lotteries. Maybe this is a subtle hint that we’re heading further towards the gamification of sports betting.
Retail & online gambling: a changing landscape
The idea of novelty value and long odds being more attractive leads us on to the GGY of arcades or Adult Gaming Centres (AGCs). It’s dramatically increased, outstripping even the rate that new machines are being introduced. But why?
Slots dominate online gambling revenue, so it’s logical they’d be a major driver for AGCs too. But there’s more to it than that. With AGC revenue rising despite no surge in new machines, it suggests a shift in behavior – players are either betting more, playing longer, or both.
High-risk, high-reward
The appeal of high-risk, high-reward games seems to be spilling over from online to retail, reflecting a broader industry trend.
While long odds might have previously put many of us off, now it seems that they could be doing the opposite. In fact, there’s been a push towards more interactive and high-volatility machines in recent years. These are the kind of machines that typically appeal to gamblers looking for higher stakes and higher potential payouts.
UKGC crackdown on illegal gambling
As has been a hot topic of discussion in many of Rhodes’ recent speeches, the UKGC is proud of the progress it’s been making on targeting illegal gambling. Since April, they have ‘issued over 770 cease and desist, and disruption notices’ to both operators and advertisers. In the same period they also successfully had 64,000 URLs removed by Google and ‘264 websites taken down’. Compared to the whole of 2023 this represents a tenfold increase – in just 9 months. These statistics speak volumes about the tenacity with which the UKGC are targeting illegal gambling operations. It’s so far been a huge success. However, Rhodes was keen to emphasise that they aren’t stopping there.
Hard line
He spoke candidly about a ‘leading supplier of gambling games’ who was currently under review by the UKGC – why? Supplying games to operators who do not hold a licence. Rhodes went on to clarify that if any illegal activity was detected in any area of the industry (whether B2C or B2B) the UKGC has the power to immediately suspend licences – and will do so.
Seeing the UKGC publicly take such a hard line against illegal gambling, in all its forms, can only be a good thing. While stiffer legislation, stake limits, and implementing RET levies should all help problem gambling rates decrease, for me, the best change they’ve made is taking a harder line against illegal activity within the sector.
Final thoughts: a defining year for UK gambling?
Rhodes looked ahead for the final part of his speech. The results from the White Paper will be implemented as planned, despite the change in government. The UKGC will continue to take action against unscrupulous and illegal operators. And, hopefully, GGY will continue to grow in a stable way.
Positive outlook
This speech was positive and hopeful. There was no talk of affordability checks, or stricter gambling advertisement laws. Rather than ‘nannying’ those of us who enjoy gambling responsibly, the UKGC has seemed to divert its attention to, what I believe are, more pressing matters. It truly feels as though they are making impressive progress on slowing down underground, unregulated gambling in this country. That’s something we should all celebrate.
