Gambling participation in 2019: behaviour, awareness and attitudes

The Gambling Commission has published on its website its “Gambling participation in 2019: behaviour, awareness and attitudes” Annual Report, that can be downloaded below, together with infographics showing (a) headline findings and (b) data relating to gambling behaviour, awareness & attitudes.

The report includes data on participation in gambling activities in the past four weeks, online gambling behaviour, awareness of gambling management tools and perceptions and attitudes towards gambling as well as data on the prevalence of problem, moderate-risk and low-risk gambling.

The headline findings are set out below:

Gambling participation (year to Dec 2019)

47%

of people have gambled in the past four weeks

32%

of people have gambled in the past four weeks (excluding those who had only played the National Lottery draws)

21%

of people have gambled online in the past four weeks

Online gambling behaviour (year to Dec 2019)

50%

of online gamblers have gambled through a mobile in the past four weeks

15%

of online gamblers, gambled in the workplace

56%

of online gamblers have more than one online account

Consumers

51%

of respondents have seen a gambling advertisement on television in the last week

29%

of respondents agreed that gambling is conducted fairly and can be trusted

43%

of respondents think that gambling is associated with crime

 Problem gambling

0.5%

of people aged 16+ in England are classified as problem gamblers according to the PGSI or DSM-IV (2018)

By reference to the final item above, the report identifies a reduction (from 0.7% in 2016 to 0.5% in 2019) in the proportion of respondents classified as problem gamblers, although the Gambling Commission chooses to describe this as “stable”, as evident from the extract below:

Problem and at-risk gambling

Problem gambling is defined as behaviour related to gambling which causes harm to the gambler and those around them. This may include family, friends and others who know them or care for them. This section presents the official statistics on the prevalence of problem gambling, taken from the Health Survey England 2018, conducted by NHS Digital and released in December 2019. This is the only survey in England where both the full PGSI screen and the DSM-IV are used as the main measures of problem gambling. Data for Wales 2018 is not currently available, although will be released in 2020. Gambling questions were not included on the Health Survey for Scotland in 2018, so data will not be available for this year.

In addition, the Commission also tracks problem gambling data using its telephone survey, which acts as a more regular and up to date measure for identifying any changes in problem gambling trends. The telephone survey uses a short-form Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI mini-screen), which is formed of three questions instead of the full nine. Respondents are then categorised by their total score as either a problem gambler, moderate-risk gambler, low-risk gambler, or non-problem gambler. Telephone survey data on problem gambling is also included below.

The Health Survey provides the Commission’s most robust estimates of problem and at-risk gambling due to the use of a high quality random probability sampling approach, a large sample size and the availability of both PGSI and DSM-IV screens. This section of the report therefore presents the main measure of problem gambling rates.

Health Survey estimates

According to the latest Health Survey figures (England 2018), 2.7% of adults were considered low-risk gamblers, and a further 0.8% were classed as moderate-risk gamblers. By low-risk, we mean gamblers who experience a low level of problems with few or no identified negative consequences. For moderate-risk we mean gamblers who experience a moderate level of problems leading to some negative consequences.

The data shows that 0.5% of respondents were classified as problem gamblers (gamblers who gamble with negative consequences and a possible loss of control). This is stable compared to the 2016 England figure (0.7%).

Quarterly telephone survey estimates

The Commission’s regular telephone survey, which uses the PGSI mini-screen reported the low-risk rate to be 2.7% and the moderate-risk rate to be 1.2%. The problem gambling rate was 0.6%, however, as noted above, the Health Surveys should be considered the most robust source of statistics on problem and at-risk gambling.

 

Download article PDF: Headline Findings