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On the tight, a black and white picture of Ben Haden, on the left, in white font, a layout of the title "Gambling Survey for Great Britain - First Annual Report"

Gambling Survey for Great Britain - First Annual Report

Our Director of Research and Statistics, Ben Haden, reflects on the publication of the First Annual Report from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain.

Posted 25 July 2024 by Ben Haden


Today we have published the first full Annual Report from the new Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB). I last blogged on GSGB in February when we published the first wave of data.

I am not going to apologise for repeating myself in terms of an introduction – all the following points remain key:

After several years in development, we are delighted we have reached this point as we strive for better evidence to inform better decisions which will lead to better regulation. It has been a significant investment for the Gambling Commission – money, people and time - I would like to thank the team who have put so much into it over this considerable time to bring it to this point.

We are now confident that we have an independently recognised robust methodology that will help us to track trends in gambling behaviour in the years to come. The GSGB provides a consistent and frequent way of collecting data amongst adults in Great Britain and will provide regular data outputs in order to help us understand changes in gambling behaviour amongst the population and amongst sub population groups.

GSGB Annual Report launch

This time I want to provide some reflections on the first release, talk about what the survey enables us to do, and how it will evolve and play its part in our wider evidence base.

GSGB establishes a new baseline for gambling behaviours in Great Britain. It has been interesting to see that while direct comparisons cannot be made to previous surveys, participation rates are similar to those previously collected through the telephone survey and many of the same patterns in the data are evident.

With the increased sample size we are going to be able to drill-down into some of the key areas - considering the unique player profiles of each sector for example but also the complexity of inter-play between them, recognising that more than half of those who gamble, gamble on two products or more.

We are going to be able to build on that by adding more data: we are collecting data for the first time to enhance our understanding of the consequences of gambling, removing our previous over-reliance on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) as a proxy for harms. Even at a headline level we can see that a more general analysis of wider consequences and behavioural symptoms will give us a far more nuanced picture than ever before.

Our work on evidence gaps and priorities has highlighted the need to build a better evidence base and understanding around two key groups: those affected by the gambling habits of close relations, and those thinking of taking their own life.

GSGB does not claim to solve these questions and great care needs to be taken in how we use the associated statistics in doing the right thing by consumers and our statutory objectives. It is a robust building block to better discussions and better decision making.

And in some ways, as I have watched the team get to grips with the new data, the most exciting part has been the clearer appreciation of how such further analysis is going to help us. For the first time since 2010 for example we can now split down the data from England, Scotland and Wales – a key point for stakeholders.

Look out for two in-depth reports before Christmas as we start to do more of that deeper analysis.

When you combine this with the potential to do longitudinal follow up with respondents, link their survey data with their account data and the transparency of the datasets to increase the analytical eyes on it, it is clear GSGB has so much potential.

When you see it as a key pillar of our consumer response, behaviour and transaction insight through our developing data sets from operators, surveys, qualitative work and open banking; it should help lead to a powerful step forward for the gambling evidence base.

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