Report

Young People and Gambling 2023

Gambling Commission report produced by Ipsos on young people and their gambling behaviour, attitudes and awareness in 2023.

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Published
16 November 2023

Last updated
16 November 2023 - Changes

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Contents

• Young People and Gambling 2023

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• Executive summary
• - Introduction
• - Headline statistics
• - Presentation and interpretation of data
• - Acknowledgements
• Young people’s active involvement in gambling
• - Summary
• - Young people's active involvement in gambling
• - Variations in active involvement in gambling
• - Variations in active involvement in types of gambling activities
• - Prevalence of non-problem, at risk or problem gambling
• - Problem gambling by gender
• - Problem gambling by age
• - Problem gambling by ethnicity
• Experience of gambling
• - Summary
• - Overall gambling experience
• - Overall gambling experience in the last 12 months
• - Variations in gambling experience
• The Impact of gambling on young people
• - Summary
• - How gambling impacts on relations with friends and family
• - How gambling makes young people feel
• - The impact of gambling on sleep
• - The impact of gambling on spending
• - The impact of gambling on schoolwork
• - Experience and impact of family members’ gambling
• Online gambling
• - Summary
• - Young people’s active involvement in online gambling
• - Overall experience of online gambling
• - Online gambling using parent's or guardian's accounts
• - Awareness and use of in-game items in video games
• - Awareness and use of virtual money or tokens to bet on sports matches
• National Lottery play
• - Summary
• - Young people’s active involvement with lottery products
• - Wider experience of lottery games
• - Buying a National Lottery draw ticket or scratchcard
• - Who young people are with when playing a National Lottery product
• Games and gaming machines
• - Summary
• - Young people’s active involvement in games and gaming machines
• - Overall experience of games and gaming machines play
• - Who is with young people when they play gaming machines
• - Types of gaming machines
• - Play in an adults-only area
• The Context for gambling participation
• - Summary
• - Setting gambling in the context of other risk-taking behaviours
• - Setting gambling in the context of other activities
• - Reasons why young people gamble
• - Why young people do not gamble
• - Who young people were with when they gambled
• Attitudes towards and exposure to gambling
• - Summary
• - Young people's views on gambling
• - Feeling informed about gambling
• - Being stopped from gambling
• - Young people's exposure to gambling adverts and promotions and frequency of exposure
• - Content of gambling adverts and promotions seen
• - Whether ever prompted to gamble by adverts and promotions
• - Following gambling companies on social media
• Appendices
• - Applying the DSM-IV-MR-J problem gambler screen
• - Research design
• - Sample profile
• List of gambling activities and definitions
• - List of gambling activities
• - Definitions

Summary

This section focuses on online gambling, examining in more detail active involvement and experience over the last 12 months, as well as awareness of eSports and in-game items.

Throughout this section we make comparisons to 2022 data. However, it should be noted that while the 2023 sample included year 12 pupils and independent schools, these were not included in the 2022 sample and therefore any differences between the two years are indicative only.

The proportion of 11 to 17 year olds who were actively involved in online gambling in the last 12 months is low; with the most common activities being betting on eSports, betting on a website or apps, and playing casino games online (1 percent respectively). Less than 1 percent of young people spent their own money on National Lottery online instant win games and online bingo.

Young people were more likely to use their parent's or guardian's accounts for online gambling with their permission (6 percent), rather than without (2 percent) when engaging in online gambling activities.

Overall, 45 percent of young people had heard of in-game items when playing video games and two in five (38 percent) had heard of paying money to open loot boxes. Awareness of, and participation in, paying for in-game items and opening loot boxes was notably higher among boys than girls, reflecting their overall higher levels of involvement in online gambling.

Notably, the closer the use of in-game items gets to gambling the lower the levels of awareness and usage are, with only 2 percent of young people having personally bet with in-game items outside of the game they were playing.

Next section
Young people’s active involvement in online gambling

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Last updated: 16 November 2023

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