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An image of Helen Bryce on the right hand side of the picture, against a dark green background, with the title of the blog "Investigating the relationship between reasons for gambling and different gambling activities" on the left hand side of the picture.

Gambling Survey for Great Britain - Investigating the relationship between reasons for gambling and different gambling activities

Our Head of Statistics, Helen Bryce, talks through the relationship between reasons for gambling and different gambling activities, in light of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain topical report publication.

Posted 30 January 2025 by Helen Bryce


Today, I am pleased to share that we have published the first of two deep dive reports building on the data and findings from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) Annual Report (2023) that we published last Summer.

This first report uses GSGB data to explore the reasons people give for taking part in gambling in much more depth than we had space for in the annual report. It builds on our understanding about the motivations and triggers for gambling as explored previously through qualitative research undertaken in 2022 about the eight typologies of gambling behaviour.

The report has been written by the University of Glasgow, who work in partnership with the National Centre for Social Research to deliver the GSGB. The large sample size of the GSGB means they have been able to investigate the associations between the activities people take part in and the reasons they take part in them in more detail.

The GSGB uses the Reasons for Gambling Questionnaire (RGQ) which is a validated question set used in the British Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS) in 2010, designed to find out about people’s reasons for gambling. It is an important question for balance on the GSGB as it ensures that we provide the opportunity for respondents to tell us about the benefits of gambling in addition to asking them other questions about the potential adverse consequences from gambling.

In the Year 1 GSGB Annual Report (2023) we found the most common reasons why adults in Great Britain gamble were: for the chance of winning big money (86 percent), because gambling is fun (70 percent), to make money (58 percent) and because it is exciting (55 percent).

Perhaps not surprisingly, the findings show that the chance of winning big money motivation is a big factor in why people play the National Lottery with large jackpots on offer. This aligns closely with our previous gambling typologies research. The ‘For the money’ typology found people gambled for the idea of ‘winning big’ even if they knew their chance of winning was a long shot, and this was common amongst National Lottery players.

But what is more interesting is where the sample size allows us to consider motivation by product. Money is not the main motivating factors for many other gambling activities. The fun and excitement of gambling were prominent amongst those taking part in private betting, football pools, betting on sports online, bingo online and also for some National Lottery draws and scratchcards too.

What also stands out in the research is the difference between the reasons given by people who gamble in person versus those who engage in activities online. Social motives for gambling are much more evident amongst in person activities, and this was particularly strong for people playing bingo in person – aligning with the typologies ‘Social Play’ and ‘Along for the Ride’. The exception to this was people playing fruit and slot machines in person, where social motives were not evident.

This is an interesting finding against a backdrop where there is increasingly more machine play in retail spaces. Something else to consider further is that despite the opportunities for social interaction for those choosing to gamble online, this study finds that people who gamble for social reasons are less likely to take part in online gambling. We know there is social interaction on platforms, but it doesn’t appear to be a driving factor in why people choose to gamble online.

The level of data in GSGB enables us to dig down from the toplines and show how much these reasons vary according to the activity that someone is taking part in and the way they are doing it – either in person or online. The results are a great example of why it is important not to simply look at ‘gambling’ in a one-dimensional way. We would like to expand this type of analysis in the future to build on our understanding of how reasons to gamble may also vary according to player demographics.

As I said at the start, this is the first of two deep dive reports we will be releasing from the GSGB. The 2nd report explores the relationship between gambling activities and Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) scores building on the relative difference analysis we included in the GSGB Annual Report (2023) published last Summer, by taking account of other factors such as number of activities someone takes part in and demographic variables. Look out for that report being published next week.

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