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Gambling participation and the prevalence of problem gambling survey: Experimental statistics stage

Gambling Commission report produced by NatCen on the experimental statistics stage of the gambling participation and the prevalence of problem gambling survey.

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Published
19 April 2023

Last updated
18 April 2023 - Changes

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Contents

• Gambling participation and the prevalence of problem gambling survey: Experimental statistics stage

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• Executive summary
• Experimentation work
• Response
• Assessment of experiment results
• Recommendations
• Introduction
• Background
• Aims and overview
• Methodology and response
• Survey design
• Questionnaire content and design
• Response to the survey
• Testing an alternative approach to the selection of participants within households
• Introduction
• Completion rates in responding households
• Adherence to participant-selection instructions
• Duplicate cases
• Household clustering
• Prevalence of gambling behaviours
• Conclusion
• Measuring gambling-related harms
• Introduction
• Testing different ways of asking about gambling harms
• Results
• Conclusion
• Testing different approaches to asking questions about gambling participation
• Introduction
• Comparison of gambling participation across the three approaches
• Potential primacy effect with the long-list approach
• Additional considerations for the postal questionnaire
• Other considerations
• Conclusion

Prevalence of gambling behaviours

The 2021 pilot survey reported a higher prevalence of gambling relative to the Health Survey for England (HSE) 2018. There appeared to be a response bias with the pilot study being more attractive to those who gambled, overestimating the prevalence within the population. This part of the analysis looked to establish whether there were significant differences between the two experimental conditions which could impact key survey statistics on gambling participation in the last 12 months.

There was no statistically significant difference between C1 (up to two adults) and C2 (up to four adults) households in the three last 12 months participation measures considered (any gambling, any gambling excluding the national lottery only; any online gambling) ('Figure 4: Gambling participation in the last 12 months, by experimental condition' as follows).

Figure 4: Gambling participation in the last 12 months, by experimental condition

Figure 4: Gambling participation in the last 12 months, by experimental condition.

Gambling participation in the last 12 months	Experimental condition C1 (up to two adults) (percentage)	Experimental condition C2 (up to four adults) (percentage)
Any gambling	62.1%	62.0%
Any gambling other than the National Lottery	47.4%	47.9%
Any online gambling other than the National Lottery	13.7%	15.2%

Figure 4 information

Note: Responses in the chart do not add up to 100 percent as they represent NET percentages of those participating in a number of different activities.

'Figure 5: Gambling activities in the last 12 months by experimental condition and adherence to participation-selection instructions' as follows, expanded this analysis to include adherence (such as whether adherence to participant-selection instructions further impacts gambling participation rates). Those from non-adherent households (irrespective of experimental condition) had higher gambling participation rates than those from adherent households but the differences were not statistically significant.

Figure 5: Gambling activities in the last 12 months by experimental condition and adherence to participation-selection instructions

Figure 5: Gambling activities in the last 12 months by experimental condition and adherence to participation-selection instructions.

Gambling participation in the last 12 months	Experimental condition C1 (up to two adults): adherent (percentage)	Experimental condition C2 (up to four adults): adherent (percentage)	Experimental condition C1 (up to two adults): non-adherent (percentage)	Experimental condition C2 (up to four adults): non-adherent (percentage)
Any gambling	62.4%	62.0%	66.5%	63.8%
Any gambling other than the National Lottery	47.4%	48.0%	51.7%	50.5%
Any online gambling other than the National Lottery	13.7%	14.0%	15.7%	19.1%

Figure 5 information

Note: Responses in the chart do not add up to 100 percent as they represent NET percentages of those participating in a number of different activities.

Previous section
Household clustering Next section
Conclusion

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Last updated: 18 April 2023

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