Survey Improvements
Gambling Survey for Great Britain Continuous Improvement: Implementing the recommendations from Professor Sturgis
In line with best practice the Gambling Commission will continue to refine and improve the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB).
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 plan to address 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.
How we will implement the recommendation
Given the high priority of this recommendation and the need for independence in the methodological development work, we have commissioned external organisations to undertake this research on our behalf.
Delivery
The project will be conducted by a consortium team from the National Centre for Social Research and the London School of Economics.
Timescales
The project will start in April 2025 and the report will be published in Summer 2025.
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.
How we will implement the recommendation
Given the high priority of this recommendation and the need for independence in the methodological development work, we have commissioned an external organisation to undertake this research on our behalf.
Delivery
The project will be conducted by a consortium team from the National Centre for Social Research and the London School of Economics.
Timescales
The project will start in April 2025 and the report will be published in Summer 2025.
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.
How we will implement the recommendation
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 Problem Gambling Severity Index (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. To improve statistical power for detecting differences between subgroups, the planned study will specifically recruit a larger sample of individuals who score 1 or more on the PGSI.
Full details of the experiment can be found in the Sturgis review recommendation 3 update report.
Delivery
The project will be conducted by a consortium team from the National Centre for Social Research and the London School of Economics.
Timescales
The project will start in April 2025 and the report will be published by the end of the Summer 2025.
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.
How we will implement the recommendation
We will conduct 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.
Delivery
The Gambling Commission.
Timescales
During 2025.
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.
How we will implement the recommendation
We will engage with our research supplier, the National Centre (NatCen) for Social Research to explore any best practice developments around household selection. We will conduct our own desk research in this area and we will engage with other official statistics producers and research groups in this area through our existing networks.
Delivery
The Gambling Commission and NatCen Social Research.
Timescales
Ongoing.
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.
How we will implement the recommendation
Our Evidence gaps and priorities 2023-2026 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 will also gather advice and opinions from our expert groups and take on board findings from other external research in this space.
Delivery
The Gambling Commission and wider gambling ecosystem.
Timescales
Ongoing through evidence gaps and priorities 2023 to 2026.
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.
How we will implement the recommendation
This would be unaffordable to do as a standalone data collection exercise.
There will be an opportunity to benchmark estimates from the GSGB against the 2024 Health Survey for England when it is published at the end of 2025 and the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) which is due for publication in Summer 2025.
Delivery
The Gambling Commission.
Timescales
Following publication of the APMS and the Health Survey for England 2024.
Last updated: 10 April 2025
Show updates to this content
Delivery and timescales updated.