When it comes to playing at casino sites in the UK, we are a nation that aims to make the small wins count
Our 2026 Bingo & Casino Player Survey asked 1,915 people how much they try to build up before cashing out.
We also asked how much they typically wager per month – and the answer to both questions was smaller than you might guess.
The typical amount people wait to cash out is £20.
So we decided to look into this a bit more and what was so special about the number 20.
Making the Small Wins Count
Despite what you might think, the typical UK player wagers very little, according to our survey.
Nearly a third of players (30%) stake under £10 a month, and almost half (49%) stake £20 or less.
Withdrawals follow the same shape: 34% take out just £1 to £9 in a typical month, and 57% withdraw £20 or less.
This number has barely budged across years of player surveys, through a cost-of-living squeeze and some significant changes to how the industry is taxed.
The psychology behind £20
There’s real behavioural science underneath this.
Back in 1974, psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (pictured below) showed that people latch onto an early number, an “anchor”, and then judge everything afterwards in relation to it.
In their landmark paper in the journal Science, the pair found that once a figure feels normal to you, you tend to stick close to it.
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More recent research suggests that anchors tend to stick over a long term.
A 2023 study in the Journal of Behavioral Finance, aptly titled “Start Small and Stay Small”, tracked app-based investors and found that people who began with small amounts kept their amounts small over time.
So the habit you set early, typically stays your benchmark, and suggests why the £20 amount has not changed significantly from one survey to the next.
What this means when you pick a site
If you aim to cash out at a modest level fairly regularly, then the withdrawal experience is going to be very important.
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That tracks with our survey findings, where 36% of players named faster withdrawals as something they want more of.
So it’s worth checking:
- How quickly a site pays out: Hours versus days.
- Whether the terms are clearly written: Only 22% of players find site terms easy to understand, so plain-English rules are a real plus.
The best casino sites in the UK will be ones that provide fast withdrawals and don’t muck you around.
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