The UK Gambling Commission’s latest Gambling Survey for Great Britain found that 3% of adults played bingo at a venue in the previous four weeks, unchanged from the preceding wave, which covered September 2025 to January 2026. The finding comes from a sample of 5,277 adults aged 18 and over, with fieldwork running from 19 January to 26 May 2026, offering a fresh snapshot of UK gambling industry growth across both digital and land-based channels.
Venue bingo’s 3% figure sits alongside in-person sports and racing betting and fruit and slots, both of which also recorded 3% participation in the latest wave. The Commission cautions that GSGB figures are not directly comparable to previous gambling survey publications due to changes in methodology, meaning the result is best read as a current snapshot rather than evidence of a year-on-year rise or fall in bingo attendance.
That comparability caveat matters for interpreting the data. The previous wave covered September 2025 to January 2026, and the Commission’s own methodology notes mean analysts should avoid stitching this figure to older gambling-participation series that used a different survey design. For now, the clearest statement the data supports is that venue bingo held level between the two most recent waves.
Online and in-person gambling context
The survey also captured the broader online-versus-offline split. Overall, 39% of adults participated in some form of online gambling during the previous four weeks, compared with 29% who gambled in person; excluding those who only played lottery draws, those figures fall to 16% online and 18% in person. These are gambling-wide figures rather than bingo-specific ones, but they frame venue bingo within a market where digital participation remains dominant while millions still gamble away from their phones.
The wider gambling picture
Beyond bingo, overall gambling participation was 49%, falling to 28% once lottery-only players were excluded. Scratchcards led non-lottery activities at 13%, followed by betting at 10% and online instant-win games at 8%, with men reporting betting participation of 16% against 4% for women – a gap that echoes patterns seen in the Commission’s research into gambling exposure among younger adults.
Online, National Lottery tickets topped activity at 25%, ahead of other charity lottery tickets at 15% and online instant-win games at 8%, a competitive backdrop also visible in recent data on UK online slots activity. The Commission found that the chance to win big money and simple enjoyment remained the most common reasons adults gave for gambling over the past year.
What the steady figure means
At 3%, venue bingo has neither grown nor shrunk between the two most recent survey waves, and it remains part of the picture both as a traditional night out and as an activity with an established online presence. The Commission’s methodology warning means this latest figure should stand on its own as a current measurement rather than as proof of a longer trend.
Source: Bingo Daily, “Bingo Holds Firm at 3% in Latest UK Gambling Commission Survey”
Petra Vanhoof has spent the better part of a decade following the shifting tides of gambling regulation across Europe and beyond. She came up through the compliance side of the industry before pivoting to writing, which gives her a grounded, no-nonsense perspective on the rules, loopholes, and political maneuvering that shape how operators actually do business. She is particularly drawn to the gap between what regulators say and what the market ends up doing in response.