Britain’s gambling industry is facing political and financial turbulence, but its public image may not be entirely in the gutter according to the latest regulatory statistics.

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has revealed the findings of the latest Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB), providing insights into the number of Britons who regularly participate in gambling and the level of harm faced by these consumers.

The regulator has reiterated its view that the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) should be viewed and used as the academic baseline for gambling prevalence, behaviours and impacts.

Publishing year-2 of the survey, insights found that 42% of adults who gambled over the past 12 months rated their experience positively, opposed to 21% who reported a negative experience.

Survey data for 2024 also shows the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) remaining unchanged. Research conducted in 2024 indicates that the rate of severe problem gambling among UK adults (PGSi +8) remains statistically stable at 2.7%.

However, with surveys on UK gambling prevalence aplenty, which ones can the industry actually trust?

The new look Gambling Survey

The GSGB was tabled by the Commission in the midst of a wide ranging regulatory review of British betting and gaming laws – the 2005 Gambling Act review, as a directive to improve evidence led research into gambling harms and societal impacts.

In late 2023, the Commission published the first set of findings from the survey, from a sample size of 9,742 adults. For the 2024 survey, the Commission doubled the sample size to 19,714 adults, hoping to reduce the margin of error and increase accuracy.

It also asserts that the push-to-web methodology of the survey means that estimates derived from it are not directly comparable with results from previous gambling surveys or health surveys, like those carried out by the now-defunct NHS England’s Health Survey for England (HSE).

Nonetheless, it is worth noting that despite the increase in sample size, the Commission’s findings are strikingly similar to ones which have come before it.

Last year’s survey put the number of people with a PGSI score of eight or more, considered problem gambling, at 2.5%. This year, the figure stands slightly higher at 2.7%, as noted above.

This may drive the overall UK problem gambling rate – out of a percentage of the overall adult population and not the population that gambles which are surveyed in GSGB – slightly above the 0.3% rate seen in last year’s surveys.

Zoom-in on risk profiles

The Commission has also taken steps to create risk profiles of different users which it is encouraging operators to utilise. These risk profiles are in turn informed by the Commission’s findings on gambling participation.

According to this year’s survey, 48% of participants aged 18 and over had participated in gambling in the preceding four weeks, falling to 28% when those who only participated in lottery draws were excluded.

Further hammering home some stats seen in the Commission’s latest gross gambling yield figures, online participation continues to rout retail participation – 38% against 29% to be precise, with lottery tickets again accounting for a lot of the latter.

Translating this data into risk profiles, the Commission states that people who gamble weekly on any activity are more likely to live in deprived areas, have fewer qualifications and live in social housing than those who don’t.

It has also identified associations between different activities and higher PGSI scores, indicating that certain types of gambling are more associated with problematic or addictive behaviour than others.

Weekly participation in slots games, both online and in-person in-play betting, betting on non-sports events online, and on non-National Lottery scratch cards are all associated with higher risks of problem gambling.

Similarly, people who gamble weekly on any vertical have higher PGSI scores than those who only play the lottery weekly, while overall people who gamble frequently have higher PGSI scores than those who gamble less frequently.

The Commission hopes that these risk profiles can be leveraged by operators to better support player protection and interventions. This comes at a crucial time to the industry, which is facing renewed calls for a regulatory review after only just emerging from the previous one in 2023, the recommendations of which are still being adopted.

“The Gambling Survey for Great Britain is a key building block of the evidence base which helps government, industry and other partners understand both gambling behaviour and potential consequences from gambling,” said Andrew Rhodes, Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission.

“This year’s findings deepen our understanding of consequences from gambling and provide crucial insight into risk profiles among those who gamble most frequently. We strongly encourage operators to use this evidence to consider the risks within their own customer bases.

“Data and research, such as GSGB, is essential to helping us identify where our regulatory focus should be and informs our ongoing work to implement player protection recommendations from the Gambling Act Review White Paper.”

How does the data stack up?

The Commission itself has stated that its differing methodology for the 2024 GSGB has made it difficult to draw comparisons between it and previous studies. It also doesn’t help that the PGSI which is used today was not always the case.

For a long time – we’re talking about decades – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) was the common metric used to measure problem gambling in the UK.

The stats remain broadly consistent over time, standing at 0.6% in 1999 and in 2007 before rising to 0.9% in 2010 and 0.7% in 2015. In 2016, the Commission switched to solely using the PGSI score to measure gambling harm, with the figure standing at 0.7% that year, and as of 2024 it seems to be 0.3%.

As the DSM-IV and PGSI use different methodologies and have differing academic interpretations, as DSM-IV is not considered directly compatible with the PGSI framework

However, despite the transition we can see that chronologically at least, problem gambling in the UK remains stable, and according to PGSI-based studies has actually fallen in recent years.

There are of course other studies to factor in, the aforementioned HSE for one. The 2021 version of this study put the number of adults engaging in at-risk or problem gambling at 2.8%, with 0.3% specifically earmarked as engaging in problem gambling.

GSGB awaits new controls

The findings of the latest GSGB may give some more weight to the arguments of many gambling reform advocates, however, particularly those who want to see local authorities granted more powers to address the sector.

Specifically, the data showing that people in low income neighbourhoods are disproportionately affected by gambling harm may support the view that gambling promises, namely betting shops and particularly adult gaming centres, are disproportionately located in said neighbourhoods.

Data for Scotland, for example, showed problem gambling rates of 11% in the most deprived commutes as opposed to less than 1% in the least deprived. This local impact of gambling harm is an issue various MPs from across the UK and some 39 council authorities in England and Wales want to address promptly.

The Commission, meanwhile, states that it is committed to seeing out the recommendations of the Gambling Act review and piloting and implementing new measures to give consumers greater control over their gambling spend.

Rhodes’ regulator wants to build on measures implemented so far, such as the ‘light touch financial vulnerability checks’ on people spending over £150 per month, plus the ban on cross-selling bonuses implemented earlier this year.

“From the end of this month our new rules will give consumer controls over deposit limits and all gambling businesses must prompt their customers to set a financial limit before they make their first deposit,” he said.

“In the land-based sector, we are also considering time and monetary limit setting functionality and safer gambling messaging on machines.

“In addition, we have been piloting enhanced frictionless financial risk assessments for those spending £1,000 within 24 hours or £2,000 within 90 days. We are currently analysing the data gathered during the pilot examining data-sharing between credit reference agencies and gambling businesses.”