UK Online Gambling Accounts 2026: 25.7m Active and £887m Held

Gambling Commission data published in September 2026 shows online gambling accounts UK operators reported 25.7m active remote accounts at the end of March 2026, while customers opened 32.4m new accounts during 2025-26. Those accounts held £886.6m of customer funds. This guide explains what the figures measure, why accounts are not people, and how your balance is protected.

Online gambling accounts UK: accounts vs people

The Gambling Commission counts remote accounts, not individual gamblers. Its industry statistics report the number of active accounts on GC licensed facilities, which means one person with accounts at four operators appears four times.

That is why 25.7m active remote accounts should never be read as 25.7m players. The figure measures the reach of the licensed online market, which our UK gambling industry statistics guide puts in the context of total gross gambling yield.

The same caution applies to product data. In the Commission’s operator data, a player may be active in more than one product, so the product columns cannot be added together to give a total.

Active gambling accounts over time

Active accounts rose steadily for most of the last decade, from 21.8m in the first reporting period of November 2014 to March 2015 to 37.6m in 2023-24. The figure for each financial year is the count at the end of the final quarter.

The fall in 2024-25 is mainly a statistical break, not a collapse in demand. The Commission changed its regulatory returns from 1 July 2024, and reported active accounts dropped from 38.97m in April to June 2024 to 23.11m in July to September 2024.

Comparing like with like, active accounts rose 6.1% from 24.2m in March 2025 to 25.7m in March 2026. Quarterly figures in 2025-26 ranged from 22.5m in July to September 2025 to 26.2m in October to December 2025.

New gambling registrations per year

New gambling registrations show how often customers open fresh accounts. In 2025-26 there were 32.4m, down 3.0% from 33.4m in 2024-25 and below the peak of 36.4m in 2022-23.

Registrations are high relative to active accounts because people open accounts with several operators and not every account stays active. In 2025-26 the Commission recorded about 1.26 new registrations for every active account at the year end.

Casino games are a large part of the online market. Our online slots statistics UK guide shows slots are the largest single online product by gross gambling yield.

How much money sits in customer funds

Customer funds gambling operators hold include deposits not yet staked, winnings left in the account and unpaid bonuses. At the end of 2025-26, remote casino, betting and bingo operators held £886.6m in customer accounts.

The 2025-26 figure is 13.9% lower than the £1,029.5m held a year earlier. Spread across active accounts, it works out at about £34.5 per account, although balances are uneven and many accounts hold nothing.

Players who prefer not to leave winnings on deposit often look at instant withdrawal casinos. Whatever the site, the simplest protection is to withdraw balances you do not plan to use.

Is your balance protected? The LCCP segregation ratings

Under licence condition 4.1.1, remote licensees that hold customer funds must keep them in a separate client bank account. Segregation alone does not mean protection, so operators must also tell customers which of the Commission’s four insolvency categories applies.

• Not protected, no segregation: permitted only for non-remote and ancillary remote operators.
• Not protected, segregated: the minimum for remote operators; funds form part of the business’s assets on insolvency.
• Medium protection: arrangements such as Quistclose accounts or insurance, with no absolute guarantee.
• High protection: independent trust accounts, verified by an independent trustee or external auditor.

Operators must show their rating in their terms, link to the Commission’s explanation and ask customers to acknowledge it when they first deposit. A common error the Commission flags is using the word “protect” when only segregation is in place.

These LCCP segregation ratings apply only to businesses with a Gambling Commission licence. Balances held on crypto casinos or other sites without a GB licence sit outside this system.

That gap matters because unlicensed sites are common: the Commission had more than 3 million illegal URLs removed from search results in the six months to September 2026, as our illegal gambling sites UK guide explains.

Payments and identity checks

How money gets into an account is also regulated. Gambling with a credit card has been banned in Great Britain since 14 April 2020, so casinos that take credit card payments from British customers are not operating under GB rules.

The ban followed Commission research finding that 22% of online gamblers who used credit cards were classed as problem gamblers.

The LCCP also sets customer identity verification conditions for licensed operators. Sites advertised as casinos without ID checks are not meeting the rules that apply to the 25.7m active remote accounts counted by the Commission.

Players by product

The Commission’s quarterly operator data, drawn from the biggest operators covering about 70 percent of the online market, counts active players by product each month.

Slots players grew while most other products shrank. In December 2025, slots had 4,918,471 active players, and our guide to online slots session length shows how long those sessions last.

FAQ: online gambling accounts UK

Short answers based on Gambling Commission industry statistics and guidance.