BGC reports £1.15bn British gambling advertising spend
Regulation2 min read
Licensed gambling operators in Great Britain spent £1.15bn on advertising between October 2023 and September 2024, the BGC said in its 2025 advertising and sponsorship report. Digital channels accounted for £768m, while operators spent a further £138m on sponsorship and dedicated 20% of advertising to responsible-gambling messages.
Licensed gambling operators in Great Britain spent £1.15bn on advertising from October 2023 to September 2024, according to a report published by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC). Alvarez & Marsal used raw data supplied by BGC members.
Digital channels accounted for £768m, or 66.8% of advertising spend, while traditional media received £341m, or 29.6%. Operators spent a further £138m on sponsorship. Gambling accounted for 2.7% of UK advertising spend in 2024, down from 3.0% a year earlier.
Excluding perimeter advertising, sector advertising spend fell at a compound annual rate of 1.7% compared with the 2021 to 2022 period, mainly because of a decline in television advertising. Television advertising spend fell by £30m, a compound annual decline of 4.4%.
Some 20% of all advertising was dedicated specifically to responsible-gambling messages, in addition to mandatory references in every advert. On television, 72% of adverts aired after the watershed, despite exemptions for bingo and certain sports betting time slots. Alvarez & Marsal warned that unlicensed operators were using advertising techniques to target the British market illegally.
Alvarez & Marsal estimated that sector advertising and sponsorship generated £506m in indirect gross value added in the supply chain during the period analysed. Of that total, £251m came from companies directly contracted for advertising and sponsorship, and £255m from the rest of the supply chain. Operators spent £84m on marketing salaries, supporting about 1,400 full-time sector jobs. The activities indirectly supported about 9,900 additional jobs.