Report
Young People and Gambling 2023: Official statistics
Gambling Commission report produced by Ipsos on young people and their gambling behaviour, attitudes and awareness in 2023.
Contents
- Executive summary
- Young people’s active involvement in gambling
- - Summary
- - Young people's active involvement in gambling
- - Variations in active involvement in gambling
- - Variations in active involvement in types of gambling activities
- - Prevalence of non-problem, at risk or problem gambling
- - Problem gambling by gender
- - Problem gambling by age
- - Problem gambling by ethnicity
- Experience of gambling
- - Summary
- - Overall gambling experience
- - Overall gambling experience in the last 12 months
- - Variations in gambling experience
- The Impact of gambling on young people
- - Summary
- - How gambling impacts on relations with friends and family
- - How gambling makes young people feel
- - The impact of gambling on sleep
- - The impact of gambling on spending
- - The impact of gambling on schoolwork
- - Experience and impact of family members’ gambling
- Online gambling
- - Summary
- - Young people’s active involvement in online gambling
- - Overall experience of online gambling
- - Online gambling using parent's or guardian's accounts
- - Awareness and use of in-game items in video games
- - Awareness and use of virtual money or tokens to bet on sports matches
- National Lottery play
- - Summary
- - Young people’s active involvement with lottery products
- - Wider experience of lottery games
- - Buying a National Lottery draw ticket or scratchcard
- - Who young people are with when playing a National Lottery product
- Games and gaming machines
- - Summary
- - Young people’s active involvement in games and gaming machines
- - Overall experience of games and gaming machines play
- - Who is with young people when they play gaming machines
- - Types of gaming machines
- - Play in an adults-only area
- The Context for gambling participation
- - Summary
- - Setting gambling in the context of other risk-taking behaviours
- - Setting gambling in the context of other activities
- - Reasons why young people gamble
- - Why young people do not gamble
- - Who young people were with when they gambled
- Attitudes towards and exposure to gambling
- - Summary
- - Young people's views on gambling
- - Feeling informed about gambling
- - Being stopped from gambling
- - Young people's exposure to gambling adverts and promotions and frequency of exposure
- - Content of gambling adverts and promotions seen
- - Whether ever prompted to gamble by adverts and promotions
- - Following gambling companies on social media
- Appendices
- List of gambling activities and definitions
Families and others affected by someone else’s gambling
The partners of people who gamble harmfully, their children, their wider family and friends and other social contacts, can also be harmed. There can be multiple knock-on effects, including reduced household budgets, less visible negative effects on personal relationships and, at the extreme, families dealing with the consequences of suicide. Some work has been done to address these harms in the recent past.31 The objective for the new strategy should be to consolidate and systematise the work, build awareness and broaden the resources and interventions available in family settings and beyond.
Causation is not always linear in nature, and direct impacts are rarely clear-cut. Gambling behaviours modelled in families and peer groups affect the gambling behaviour of others. In particular, parents have more influence than they might realise on affecting their children’s behaviour.32 Their actions can either increase the risk of harmful gambling by their children or play a protective role.33
An effective harm-prevention strategy needs to recognise these complex relationships and help families and peer groups play a more protective role and avoid transmitting risk to younger generations. Support and awareness raising could help them play a protective role more effectively. We suggested in a previous advice paper on children, young people and gambling34 that this should include helping parents to know what their children are doing online – especially if this involves gambling with ‘skins’ or ‘gambling-like activities’ which may have the effect of normalising gambling for children.35 Recent moves by the Gambling Commission and regulators in other countries to address these new challenges have been a positive development.36
References
31 GambleAware funds support for family and friends of problem gamblers (PDF) (opens in a new tab) GambleAware, October 2018
32 Beginning gambling: the role of social networks and environment (opens in a new tab) Gerda Reith and Fiona Dobby, University of Glasgow, January 2011
33 Gambling in families: a study on the role and influence of family and parental attitudes and behaviours on gambling-related harm in young people (opens in a new tab) Ecorys, September 2018 & Perceptions, people and place: Findings from a rapid review of qualitative research on youth gambling (opens in a new tab) Dr Heather Wardle, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, October 2018
34 Children, young people and gambling: A case for Action (PDF) (opens in a new tab) RGSB, June 2018
35 Virtual currencies, eSports and social casino gaming – position paper (PDF) Gambling Commission 2017
36International concern over blurred lines between gambling and video games Gambling Commission, September 2018
Last updated: 21 December 2022
Show updates to this content
Following an audit the links within References 31, 33 and 34 have been updated.