UK Online Slot Sessions Shortening After £5 Stake Caps Introduced

The number of online slots sessions in Great Britain lasting longer than an hour declined by 16% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2025/26 to 8.9 million, suggesting the caps on online slots is having an impact on the length of playing sessions.

Data released by British regulator the Gambling Commission showed that for the three months to the end of December 2025, average session length decreased by two minutes to 16 minutes. About 4.4% of all sessions lasted more than one hour, down from 6.2% in Q3 the previous year.

What are the online slots caps?

On April 9, 2025, a £5 limit on online slot stakes for all adults in the UK went live; this was one of more than 60 gambling reform proposals put forward by the government’s 2023 Gambling White Paper.

On May 21, a £2 limit for adults aged between 18 and 24 went live. However, when a player over 25 makes a bet on an online slot game, further staking opportunities could be offered within the same game cycle up to the value of £3.

While the new online slot stakes went live in Q1, covering the three months to the end of June 2025, the last two quarters have been the first showcasing a clear year-on-year comparison between the results with the caps in place and those without the caps in place.

The Commission said some operators have refined their session length methodology during the previous year, which will impact year-on-year comparisons on the number of sessions, sessions over one hour and average session length metrics.

Overall GGY is up

Despite the drop in session lengths lasting more than an hour, gross gambling yield (GGY) from online slots increased 10% to £788 million. The overall number of spins went up 7% to 25.7 billion. The GGY and number of spins represented new peaks for this dataset for the third quarter in a row.

The data suggests the caps are not leading to a lack of activity or engagement with online slots games, but that the inability to place large stakes is leading to players being less inclined to play for longer periods of time.

In Q2, covering the three months to the end of September 2025, the number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour decreased by 15% to 8.6 million.

The Q2 data also showed the number of total sessions increased by 13% in the equivalent time period to 188 million. Approximately 5% of all sessions lasted in excess of one hour during the quarter, down from 6% the previous year. The average session length decreased by one minute to 16 minutes.

Despite not being as clear a comparison, online slots GGY increased 14% to £745 million in Q1. The number of spins increased 8% in the quarter to 24.4 billion, and the number of spins per session decreased from 139 to 129.

Consistent data

The data is now showing some consistency, meaning operators as a whole are showing an ability to cope with the transition, despite the fact that based on the Q3 data, GGY from slot games accounts for 52% of overall online gambling GGY. In Q3, total online GGY was £1.5 billion, down 2%.

The decrease in total GGY was despite the overall number of total bets and spins increasing 6% to 27.4 billion, suggesting operators may have played unlucky for the quarter.

However, the average monthly active accounts in the quarter decreased 2% to 12.7 million during the same timeframe, so inactive accounts could have also played a part.