Women and Gambling on International Women’s Day 2025
Our Senior Research and Statistics Analyst Amandeep Manku explores what our Gambling Survey for Great Britain data tells us about women's experiences of gambling.
Posted 10 March 2025 by Amandeep Manku
This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is ‘For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.’ a theme that resonates with our work here at the Commission. We’re accelerating action by strengthening our evidence base, actively collecting data to give us the most accurate picture of gambling behaviour, including the experiences of women and gambling.
In a past International Women’s Day blog post, we shared how we were piloting a new survey methodology, to improve the robustness and timeliness of our data on gambling participation and it’s wider impacts, particularly for women. Fast forward to today, we now have just that.
Our Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) is carried out continuously throughout the year. In the first year (consisting of two waves of data collection), the survey reached 9,742 respondents, with the aim from Year 2 onwards of reaching 20,000 respondents per year.
With a large sample and a range of questions (including our newly developed and validated questions on the consequences of gambling), we’re able to dig deeper into the gambling trends and experiences within specific subgroups, generating robust survey estimates.
In this blog post, we explore findings from the first annual GSGB to better understand how women participate in gambling, and what the consequences (both positive and negative) look like for them.
How many females gamble?
The GSGB (2023) showed that less than half of females (44 percent) reported gambling in the past four weeks, a proportion similar to those who said they had been to a bar or club (46 percent).
Age played a role in participation, with females aged 35 to 74 being more likely to have gambled recently, with participation rates ranging between 46 to 51 percent.
But what happens when we remove lottery draw based games which are widely popular?
The participation rate nearly halves to 24 percent, revealing a reverse age pattern. Without lottery draw based games, younger females aged 18 to 44 were more likely to have gambled in the past four weeks (28 to 29 percent).
Online versus in-person: How are females gambling?
When it comes to how females gamble, many used a combination of online and in-person gambling methods (17 percent), followed by online only (15 percent), and in-person only (10 percent) in the past four weeks.
However, when we exclude lottery draw based games, the pattern changes: females were more likely to gamble in-person (11 percent), followed by a mix of online and in-person methods (6 percent) and online only (4 percent) came last.
What are females gambling on?
When we look at the gambling activities females take part in, bingo stands out as particularly popular compared to men. Younger females (aged 18 to 24) were more likely to have played bingo in the past four weeks (9 percent) than any other age-sex demographic.
With the rise of non-traditional bingo, such as social bingo nights, themed events, and online platforms, bingo is evolving beyond its classic image. To keep up with changes in the gambling landscape, we’ve introduced new modular questions to the GSGB, helping us to track where people are playing.
More generally, among females who gambled in the past four weeks, the most common activities included lottery draw based games (78 percent), scratchcards (32 percent) and online instant win games (14 percent).
Why do females gamble?
When we asked females who had gambled in the past 12 months about their reasons for gambling, the top three reasons included
- the chance to win big money (84 percent)
- because it’s fun (70 percent)
- to make money (54 percent).
Compared to older females, younger females were more likely to gamble for fun.
How do females feel about gambling?
We also asked females to reflect on their gambling experiences: 38 percent of females who gambled in the past 12 months rated the last time they gambled with a positive score, 39 percent gave a score which expressed they neither loved nor hated it and 22 percent gave it a negative score.
How do females experience adverse consequences from gambling?
Using the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), we found that females were 1.8 times less likely to experience problem gambling (PGSI score of 8 to 27) than males. A similar pattern was seen for those scoring 3 to 7 on the PGSI, where females were about half as likely as males to experience it. For those scoring 1 or 2 on the PGSI, females were 1.3 times less likely than men to experience it.
While the PGSI remains a valuable tool, a recent Ipsos report commissioned by GambleAware (2023) (opens in new tab) highlighted some of its limitations. Notably, it doesn’t clearly differentiate between gambling behaviours and the harms they cause, nor does it capture the wider impact on friends, family and communities.
To build on the PGSI and address these gaps, the Commission has developed and validated a new set of questions to better understand the broader consequences of gambling. These new measures focus on severe adverse consequences and potential adverse consequences.
Among females who had gambled in the past 12 months, 2.1 percent reported experiencing at least one severe consequence due to their own gambling. The most reported severe consequence was relationship breakdown (1.2 percent) followed by losing something of significant financial value (0.9 percent), committing a crime (0.8 percent) and experiencing violence or abuse (0.7 percent).
When looking at potential adverse consequences among females who gambled in the past 12 months, 5.6 percent had reported reduced spending on everyday items due to their own gambling, followed by admitting to lying to family about gambling (4.9 percent), feeling isolated as a result of gambling (4.6 percent), used savings or borrowed money to continue gambling (4.1 percent), experiencing conflict or arguments due to gambling (3.9 percent) and was absent from work due to gambling related issues (2.9 percent).
Seeking support: where are females turning for support?
For some, the impact of gambling led them to seek support or information from various services. In the past 12 months, 2.7 percent of females who gambled had sought help from at least one of the following: food banks or welfare organisations (1.4 percent), mental health services (1.1 percent), relationship counselling and/or support services (0.9 percent) and gambling support services (0.8 percent).
Moving forward
As one of the Commission’s evidence sources, the GSGB helps to fill and support our evidence gaps and priorities. From our findings, we can see that gambling experiences aren’t the same for all females. Different groups have varied experiences, highlighting the need for a more nuanced understanding of gambling impact.
Understanding the broader impact of gambling on females, including the effects of someone else's gambling is another key focus of our research.
Supporting data
More about the GSGB can be found on our designated Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) hub. The annual data for the GSGB (2023) has now been uploaded to the UK Data Service (opens in new tab).