Gaming Machines in Great Britain 2026: 191,804 Machines by Category

Gaming machines UK figures from the Gambling Commission show 191,804 machines in British arcades, bingo halls, betting shops, casinos and family entertainment centres in January to March 2026. Together they generated £2,696.9m in gross gambling yield (GGY) in 2025-26, 4.3% more than a year earlier. This guide breaks the provisional 2026 data down by venue type and by machine category, and sets it against the long-run trend since 2008-09.

How many gaming machines are there in Great Britain?

The Commission counted 191,804 gaming machines in January to March 2026, 3.9% more than the 184,614 recorded in January to March 2025. The count peaked at 193,062 in July to September 2025 before easing slightly over the winter.

Two venue types dominate. Adult Gaming Centres held 42.1% of all machines in early 2026 and bingo halls 38.9%, so together they account for 81.0% of the estate (our calculation).

Betting shops are the only venue type with fewer machines than a year before, down 3.5% to 22,088. How high-street bookmakers and arcades compare on premises and revenue is covered in our report on betting shops UK.

The older annual series used average machine numbers rather than quarterly counts. On that basis the estate grew from 157,023 in 2008-09 to 194,794 in 2023-24, so the two series should not be compared too closely.

Machines in arcades: Adult Gaming Centres and FECs

Machines in arcades are the fastest-growing part of the market. Adult Gaming Centres added 4,297 machines in a year, a rise of 5.6%, while Family Entertainment Centres were almost flat at 9,996.

Arcade revenue grew faster than machine numbers. Adult Gaming Centre machine GGY reached £761.5m in 2025-26, up 11.3% from £684.0m in 2024-25, while Family Entertainment Centres took £38.6m.

The Commission notes that about 2,000 machines in high-street bingo premises have been recorded under the adult gaming centre sector in its new session data. Treat the split between arcades and bingo with some caution for that reason.

All of these counts cover licensed venues in Great Britain only. Online games offered by non-UK casino sites are not part of the machine statistics, and neither are any physical machines outside Great Britain.

Machine categories: what B, C and D mean

The Commission sorts machines into Category B1/B2/B3/C/D bands, plus B3A and B4, according to the maximum stake and prize. Category A, with no stake or prize limit, is not currently permitted anywhere in Great Britain.

Category B machines made up 57,372 of the January to March 2026 count, or 29.9%. Category C was the largest group with 98,769 machines (51.5%), and category D had 35,663, mostly low-stake coin pushers, crane grabs and similar games.

Since April to June 2024 the Commission has published category B as a single group, after rule changes that took effect on 1 July 2024. B2 machines in bookmakers, better known as fixed-odds betting terminals, are tracked over the long run in our FOBT statistics.

Gaming machine GGY: where the money is made

Gaming machine GGY, the amount kept after winnings are paid out, was £2,696.9m in 2025-26. Category B machines produced £2,408.1m of that, or 89.3%, while category C produced £226.2m and category D £62.6m.

The contrast between numbers and revenue is striking. Betting shops hold 11.5% of machines but took 44.4% of machine GGY, about £54,157 per machine in 2025-26 against roughly £9,440 in Adult Gaming Centres (our calculation, dividing annual GGY by the early-2026 count).

Machines are only one slice of the market. They produced 15.5% of the £17,455.7m total GGY recorded for 2025-26, as our UK gambling industry statistics overview shows.

Casinos and bingo halls: more machines in 2026

Casinos saw the sharpest rise in numbers, from 3,127 machines in January to March 2025 to 4,361 a year later, up 39.5%. Casino machine GGY rose more slowly, by 3.2% to £239.0m.

Bingo halls added 2,449 machines to reach 74,694, and their machine GGY grew 8.9% to £461.7m. How these changes fit the wider picture for UK land-based casinos and bingo clubs is covered in our venue report.

The Commission has also started publishing session data for category B machines. Its first release in September 2026 covers 80% of the category B market: 100% of betting shop machines, 74% in arcades, 51% in bingo halls and 50% in casinos.

That release is management information rather than official statistics. It is also separate from European online casinos and other remote products, which the Commission reports as remote casino rather than machines.

Gaming machines UK trend since 2008: from the FOBT peak to 2026

Machine GGY grew from £1,868.8m in 2008-09 to a peak of £2,816.3m in 2018-19. In that year B2 machines alone produced £1,165.2m across all venues.

The cut in the B2 maximum stake from £100 to £2 took effect on 1 April 2019. Machine GGY fell 28.3% to £2,018.4m in 2019-20, and the number of B2 machines dropped from 32,798 on average in 2018-19 to 410. Operators switched to B3 games, whose average number across all venues rose from 21,764 to 51,843 over the same year.

Lockdown closures pushed GGY down to £902.9m in 2020-21. By 2025-26 it had recovered to within 4.2% of the 2018-19 peak (our calculation), driven by arcades and bingo rather than bookmakers.

Stake limits apply only to venues in Great Britain. Games at offshore casinos sit outside both these rules and the Commission’s figures.

FAQ: gaming machines in Great Britain

Quick answers on gaming machines UK data from official sources.