Strategy

National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms 2019 to 2022

The sole aim of this three-year (2019 to 2022) National Strategy was to move faster and go further to reduce gambling harms.

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Published
24 April 2019

Last updated
27 September 2022 - Changes

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Contents

• National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms 2019 to 2022

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• Prevention and education
• - Overview
• - Realising the aim
• Treatment and support
• - Overview
• - Realising the aim
• Regulation and oversight
• - Purpose
• - Working in partnership
• - Gambling Commission actions
• Collaboration
• - Purpose
• - Working in partnership
• - Gambling Commission actions
• Evaluation
• - Purpose
• - Working in partnership
• - Gambling Commission actions
• Research to inform action
• - Purpose
• - Working in partnership
• - Gambling Commission actions
• - Research programme
• - Defining, measuring and monitoring gambling-related harms
• - Patterns of play
• - Changes in gambling behaviour over time
• - What works in industry-based harm-minimisation
• - Prevention and education
• - Treatment

Purpose

The National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms was launched in April 2019 and ran until April 2022. The content and actions in these pages refer to programmes of activity to reduce gambling harms during that time.

Well-designed and well-delivered evaluation will be a core part of the evidence base for widespread adoption of measures proven to reduce gambling harms.

Good evaluation looks not only at the process, but also the impact on people and behaviour. In order to achieve the overall aim of the strategy, a greater understanding is needed of the impact that interventions and activities have on how people gamble, how they experience harm, and how they respond to prevention and support activities and interventions. This means that evaluation needs to be built in from the beginning of an intervention or project.

The key principles of good evaluation, as set out in the existing protocol are:

Robustness and credibility:

Appropriate evaluation generates robust evidence. This includes drawing on quantitative and qualitative data and incorporating the consumer and, or as well as, user voice.

Proportionality:

Evaluation should be proportionate to the risk and scale of the intervention, so scale should be considered and documented at the outset.

Independence:

Independent evaluation is perceived as more objective, robust and credible, but may not be proportionate for all interventions.

Transparency:

Evaluations should be as open as possible about the rationale and details of the intervention, the evaluation process, results generated, and conclusions. Transparency increases confidence and credibility and allows stakeholders to think about how lessons learned can be transferred.

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Working in partnership

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Last updated: 27 September 2022

Show updates to this content

Callout added to detail that the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms ran until April 2022.