Northern Ireland's Land-Based Gambling Turnover Rose 27% to £206.9m in 2024, Still 73% Below 2016

The Department for Communities' fourth annual gambling compendium shows turnover recovering on a revised series, betting office licences falling for a second year and the first count of machines under the new £500 prize limit. Its biggest number, a record £89 million in duty, is a modelled share of a UK tax.

• Turnover of land-based gambling and betting operators in Northern Ireland rose to £206.9 million in 2024 from a revised £162.6 million in 2023, according to official statistics published on 21 October by the Department for Communities (DfC) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA)
• The rise is about 27%, which the bulletin calls "a small rise", and turnover remains about 73% below the 2016 estimate of £760.7 million; the survey sample excludes online operators without a Northern Ireland head office
• Operational bookmaking office licences fell to 276 in 2025 from 280 in 2024 and 285 in 2023, and bookmakers' licences fell to 103 from 106
• Councils issued 110 amusement permits covering 6,493 machines under the new £500 maximum prize, which took effect in January 2025, and the department warns that comparisons with earlier years should be made with caution
• Betting and Gaming Duty attributed to Northern Ireland reached an estimated £89 million in 2024-25, the highest in the series, as Machine Games Duty heads into the 28 October Budget

Northern Ireland's Gambling Statistics Show a Smaller, Steadier Land-Based Sector

The fourth edition of the compendium covers licensing in calendar 2025 and economic data for the latest year available. It draws on records from the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service (NICTS), returns from the 11 district councils, NISRA business surveys and Office for National Statistics (ONS) tax estimates. The figures are Official Statistics not yet independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation, the bulletin says.

Land-based turnover was £206.9 million in 2024, up from £162.6 million in 2023, according to Table 10. Last year's edition put 2023 at £170.9 million and 2022 at £228.1 million; this edition revises 2022 to £185.8 million, so the series now shows a dip and a recovery rather than an uninterrupted slide. The bulletin's key points label the £206.9 million as 2025 turnover, but its table and commentary both date it to 2024. NISRA warns that the figure rests on a small subset of a sample survey and excludes online operators not headquartered in Northern Ireland.

The courts' licence counts moved down at the margin. Operational bookmaking office licences fell to 276 from 280, after 285 in 2023, and bookmakers' licences to 103 from 106. Bingo club licences rose to 37 from 36, gaming machine certificates fell to 29 from 32, and one lottery certificate remained in force.

Councils renewed 185 society lotteries in 2025, against 147 in 2024, and granted 53 new ones, against 63. They also revoked 16 society lottery registrations, after none in either of the two previous years. The bulletin does not explain the revocations.

The First Year of £500 Machines

The Gaming (Variation of Monetary Limits) Order (Northern Ireland) 2025 raised the maximum prize on a gaming machine in bingo clubs, licensed betting offices and amusement-permit premises from £25 to £500 on 29 January 2025, and the maximum stake from 30p to £2, according to the Order. Councils issued 110 amusement permits under the new limit, covering 6,493 machines, against 112 permits and 6,410 machines under the old £25 limit in 2024. Permits for £8 prize machines fell to 13 from 23, covering 499 machines.

The machine totals are not like for like: counts up to 2024 exclude Ards and North Down Borough Council, and the 2025 count for Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council repeats its 2024 figure, the bulletin says.

Employment in gambling and betting activities was 2,047 in 2024, down from 2,241 in 2022, according to the Business Register and Employment Survey. The Inter Departmental Business Register counted 85 VAT or PAYE registered gambling businesses in 2026, rounded to the nearest five.

The Duty Figure Measures Spending, Not Licensed Activity

The £89 million of Betting and Gaming Duty for 2024-25 is the bulletin's largest number and its least local one. The ONS does not measure it in Northern Ireland: it apportions the UK total across regions by household spending in the Living Costs and Food Survey, and that total includes Remote Gaming Duty from online operators, which Northern Ireland's 1985 Order does not license. The ONS has also revised 2022-23 from £77 million to £87 million since the last edition, so the record rests on a modelled and moving series. The duty line is a proxy for household spending; the licence tables describe a static land-based sector. The gap between them is the online market the Department has not yet legislated for, as Communities Minister Gordon Lyons confirmed this month when he left online reform to the next Assembly.

Northern Ireland's Machines Now Sit Inside Westminster's Tax Fight

The January 2025 limits put Northern Ireland's arcade and betting office machines at a £2 stake and a £500 prize, the same limits the Labour MPs' letter to the Chancellor attaches to Category B3 machines in Great Britain. Machine Games Duty is a UK tax, but the Category B classification belongs to Great Britain's Gambling Act 2005, which does not set Northern Ireland's machine rules, so how a category-based rate would apply there is a question for the Treasury's drafting. If the Budget does deliver the doubling of Machine Games Duty that The Times reported it could, the rise would reach Northern Ireland's operators while the higher limits are less than two years old.

The Data Is Too Slow and Too Manual for the Decisions Ahead

The compendium publishes licensing data ten months after the year ends, and its turnover and employment figures are for 2024. NICTS still records licences on paper, and each courthouse makes a manual count; an electronic system is expected to roll out across 2026 and 2027, according to the background quality report. A department preparing to review its 2022 Act and to scope online regulation is working from a sample-based turnover series that has just been revised, machine counts that miss a council each year, and a duty estimate it does not measure.

Northern Ireland's land-based sector is far smaller than a decade ago but has steadied, with turnover recovering and licence numbers easing at the margin. What the statistics cannot show is the online market that the Department still has no law to license.