Implementing the recommendations from Professor Sturgis
In February 2024, Professor Sturgis published an independent review of the GSGB. The independent review (opens new tab) assessed the GSGB’s methodological approach and made recommendations for further research to ensure the quality and robustness of the statistics. The recommendations focus on how the Gambling Commission can continue to build stakeholder and public confidence in the survey by examining the extent to which changes in our methodology may have affected estimates of gambling behaviours.
We have outlined how we have addressed each of these recommendations. Recommendations 1 to 4 were considered by Professor Sturgis to be the highest priority, whilst recommendations 5 to 7 were for longer term implementation and to some extent, dependent on circumstances outside of the Commission’s control.
Recommendation 1: The Commission should conduct research to better understand the relationship between survey topic and the propensity of people who gamble to respond to survey invitations.
What we did
We commissioned a consortium team from the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and the London School of Economics (LSE) to undertake the experimental research required for this recommendation. Importantly, to ensure objectivity and minimise any risk of bias, the research was conducted by an independent team at NatCen who were not involved in the development or ongoing delivery of the GSGB.
Timescales
The findings from the research were published on 14 August 2025 (opens new tab).
Research findings
The research found that estimates of gambling participation were significantly higher amongst people who were invited to take part in a survey about gambling, compared with those who were invited to take part in a survey introduced as a health and lifestyles survey (4 percentage points difference). Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) scores were slightly higher amongst people who received the gambling survey invitation (1.8 percentage points), but this difference was not statistically significant.
These findings suggest that mentioning gambling in the GSGB invite may attract a greater proportion of people who gamble, but it is unclear whether this reflects increased accuracy in participation estimates. We have included this as a potential limitation of our approach in the GSGB technical report.
Following a request from our GSGB statistics user group, we hosted a webinar on 10 September 2025 to share and discuss the findings from this research with them in more detail.
Recommendation 2: The Gambling Commission should undertake additional research to better understand the role of socially desirable responding as the driver of the difference in gambling estimates between in-person and self-completion surveys.
What we did
We commissioned a consortium team from NatCen and the LSE to undertake the experimental research required for this recommendation. Importantly, to ensure objectivity and minimise any risk of bias, this research was conducted by an independent team at NatCen who were not involved in the development or ongoing delivery of the GSGB.
Timescales
The findings from the research were published on 14 August 2025 (opens new tab).
Research findings
The research found that PGSI scores were significantly higher amongst people who were randomly assigned to complete the survey online, compared to those who completed it via telephone (4.4 percentage point difference). Survey mode did not affect estimates of gambling participation. These findings suggest that responses to PGSI questions may be suppressed in interviewer-led surveys, due to social desirability bias. In contrast, the GSGB’s self-completion methodology may encourage more honest reporting of gambling behaviours.
This gave us greater confidence in the PGSI estimates from the GSGB survey and suggests that previous estimates from surveys using other methodologies may have been subject to downward biases. We amended our guidance in October 2025 to reflect this greater confidence in the estimates.
Following a request from our GSGB statistics user group, we hosted a webinar on 10 September 2025 to share and discuss the findings from the research with them in more detail.
Recommendation 3: The Gambling Commission should undertake a randomised experiment to evaluate the effect of the updated list of gambling activities on estimates of gambling prevalence and harm.
What we did
We conducted an initial experiment with YouGov's survey panel. We found that the list of gambling activities used in the GSGB identified a significantly higher proportion of people who gambled online compared to the list used in the Health Survey. The GSGB activity list also identified a slightly higher percentage of participants who scored 8 or more on the PGSI, however this difference was not statistically significant due to low sample sizes. When combining PGSI risk categories 3-7 and 8 or more, we found that the GSGB activity list identified a significantly greater proportion of participants in higher risk PGSI categories compared to the Health Survey activity list.
Our findings suggest that the list of activities provided in the GSGB more effectively identifies people who gamble online, compared with the list of activities used in the health surveys of England, Scotland and Wales. This enhanced ability to capture people who gamble online may contribute to the higher prevalence of people scoring 8 or more on the PGSI in the GSGB relative to previous health surveys.
Importantly, our analysis of subgroups was limited by relatively low sample sizes, particularly for those scoring 8 or more on the PGSI. Full details of the experiment can be found in the Sturgis review recommendation 3 update report.
To expand upon these findings, we examined the effect of the updated activity list on estimates of gambling participation and PGSI prevalence using a larger sample. This was undertaken by a consortium team from NatCen and the LSE. Importantly, to ensure objectivity and minimise any risk of bias, this research was conducted by an independent team at NatCen who were not involved in the development or ongoing delivery of the GSGB.
Timescales
The findings from the research were published on 14 August 2025 (opens new tab).
Research findings
The research showed that the updated gambling activity list had no significant effect on PGSI scores or estimates of gambling participation. These findings suggest that the updated activity list does not account for the difference in gambling participation and prevalence estimates between the GSGB and Health Surveys.
Recommendation 4: The Gambling Commission should take steps to assess the extent of potential bias in the subset of questions administered to online respondents only.
What we did
We have conducted further analysis of the GSGB findings by mode to understand the differences in responses between those respondents answering on paper compared to those answering online.
Timescales
We will publish the findings by the end of 2026.
Recommendation 5: The Gambling Commission should continue to monitor best practice developments in the area of within household selection of adults in push-to-web surveys.
What we did
We engaged with our research supplier, NatCen, to explore best practice developments around household selection. With the next-birthday method balancing statistical robustness with practical compliance, NatCen still considers this the best way to select adults within households.
Recommendation 6: The Gambling Commission should carry out research on the prevalence of gambling and gambling harm in groups that are excluded from the GSGB because they are not included on the sampling frame.
What we did
Our Evidence gaps and priorities 2023 to 2026 outlines areas of interest and focus for research, with one theme specifically aimed at gambling related harms and vulnerability.
We have a Consumer Voice programme with whom we can undertake research with specific consumer groups, who may not be included within the GSGB sampling frame. We also gather advice and opinions from our expert groups and take on board findings from other external research in this space.
We have also published research from the GSGB about affected others, and later in 2026 will be publishing research exploring the gambling behaviours amongst ethnic minority communities which aligns with our evidence roadmap for this theme.
Recommendation 7: The Gambling Commission should seek opportunities to benchmark the estimates from the GSGB against a contemporaneous face-to-face interview survey in the future.
What we did
Professor Heather Wardle, from the University of Glasgow and part of the GSGB project team has written a think piece ‘Different Survey, Same Story’ comparing the GSGB to the Health Survey Series looking at whether the surveys reveal consistent patterns of behaviour.
We are aware of findings from the Department of Communities 2024 Northern Ireland Gambling Prevalence Survey (opens in new tab) which uses a face-to-face methodology.
We have assessed headline estimates from the 2024 Health Survey for England and the 2023 to 2024 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS). We are awaiting publication of the raw data to the UKDS before we can undertake a full comparison. We anticipate this could be by the end of 2026.
Last updated: 16 July 2026
Show updates to this content
Updated following the release of the 2025 GSGB annual report.