The latest Northern Ireland industry data has painted a somewhat convoluted picture, underscoring important trends but with wide confidence margins.

Starting with a total pool of 1,987 respondents, 43% have indicated that they do not gamble. What’s left is a majority of 57% who have self-identified as gamblers, having engaged with the industry at least once in the last 12 months.

Given the small sample size, however, this should not be taken as a representation of the whole Northern Ireland population with even the report itself making it clear that estimates are not precise.

Demographic takeaways

Having that in mind, around 154 individuals from the total sample were put in the 16-24 age bracket. This group makes up the highest percentage among the other age bands to have gambled in the last 12 months (66%). However, it should be noted that the confidence margin is very wide here, between 58.1% and 73.1%.

Those with a disability or having dependants have also gambled in large numbers in the 12 months prior, albeit again with notably high confidence margins.

Of the 381 people that have confirmed a disability, 55% are said to have gambled, while of the 658 that have dependents, that percentage goes up to 62%.

National Lottery drives physical engagement

In-person participation in the last 12 months stood at 47%, while online was at 23%. The reason behind this becomes clear when the preferred types of gambling products are taken into consideration.

A total of 35% have said that they’ve bought a National Lottery ticket, scratchcards and instant win cards purchases were at 18%, betting stood at 16%, tickets for any other lottery had 13% of engagement, while only 7% indicated iGaming as their main preference over the last year. 

However, multiple responses were allowed for this segment, which coupled with the already wide confidence margins obscure accurate estimates even more.

Of those opting in for National Lottery draws, 73% did so in-person as opposed to the 22% of their online counterparts. Scratchcards were also bought predominantly in-person by 95% of people, while only 4% did so online.

Interestingly, while betting had a higher percentage of online engagement at 34%, the majority of players (46%) still preferred to place a wager at a physical bookie.

When it comes to frequency, more than half (51%) of the 35% of National Lottery players participate in a draw at least once a week. This number was 47% among bettors, while 48% of iGaming customers also logged in at least once per week.

PGSI hints at low-risk gambling but stigma still pertains

As per PGSI scores, data becomes even more convoluted. From the pool of 1,987, 88% were designated as non-problem gamblers. However, these numbers are mixed with the 43% who have not identified themselves as gamblers, diluting the full picture further.

Regardless, a glimpse of hope for the accuracy of those PGSI stats can be seen on a page that only focuses on those 57% who participated in gambling (1,124). That page lists a variety of questions that help create a risk gambling profile.

Players were surveyed on whether they have ever wagered more than they could afford to lose, whether they have borrowed money to gamble, and whether they felt they have a problem with gambling.

Judging by the fact that the percentage of those who answered ‘never’ vary between 83% and 95%, it can be established that problem gamblers represent a minority of the total pool.

One last takeaway from the report could be a sign that stigma around gambling harm still exists among players.

This is due to the fact that 1% of the 1,124 gamblers sought mental health services support for themselves in the last 12 months, while a separate pool of 647 people showed that 3% have done the same because they’ve been affected by someone else’s gambling.

Similarly, 1% of gamblers reached out to relationship counsellors, while that number stood at 2% for the other pool.

Finally, gambling support services saw 1% of gamblers reaching out in the last 12 months. This was 3% for the other group.