Report
Consumers' views on informed choice in gambling
Findings from a research project to explore how consumers understand the meaning of “informed choice” in gambling.
Views on informed choice when deciding to gamble
'The Gambling Commission’s Path to Play framework describes 6 stages of the consumer gambling journey: passive influences, external triggers, internal impulses, active search, play experience, and play outcome. This provides a shared structure for connecting the findings to specific points in the consumer journey where informed choice is most relevant, and where interventions might be most effective.
This section examines how participants made decisions about staying informed when choosing whether to gamble, and how they subsequently navigated platforms to select specific games or bets. It examines how passive influences, such as early attitudes about gambling, are formed, and how external triggers (that is, contextual nudges to gamble) and internal influences (that is, motivation to gamble) interact to influence informed decision-making. It also examines what participants need and currently see during active search to help or hinder them from making informed choices.
Key themes:
Regardless of game type, participants valued information about potential wins and losses, game chances, rules, terms and conditions, and the risk of harm. Some felt platforms emphasised potential wins over the rest of this information. Beyond this shared baseline, barriers and facilitators varied by product and experience.
Experienced sports bettors relied more on past experiences and their knowledge of the game. They valued a clearer interface, the consistent display of odds and periodic performance tracking, such as win/loss percentages.
New casino players relied on clear and easily accessible information on chances, rules, terms and risks while experienced casino players chose to play games they were already familiar with. New players sometimes began playing before they understood the mechanics. They preferred free-play demo modes and visible, consistent and simple pre-game information.
Land-based players struggled with complex machines and a lack of explicit instructions. They preferred having venue staff available to explain game mechanics before they wagered, so they did not lose money on games they did not understand.
What it means to be informed before gambling
Informed choice in gambling starts before individuals decide to gamble for the first time. Aligned with the Path to Play framework, participants mentioned that their knowledge of gambling was shaped by external influences, such as early exposure to family gambling, discussions with peers at the pub, media or advertisements they encountered. The degree to which these prior experiences equipped them with sufficient knowledge to make informed decisions varied. Some had learned how a number of gambling products (for example, sports betting or a particular casino game) worked, and considered themselves informed. Others noticed that the external environment offered a skewed perspective on gambling and desired more education about gambling risks and a wider recognition that any money placed as a bet could be lost. For example, some noticed that promotions and adverts, whether online, in media or on gambling platforms, placed more emphasis on what people could win through gambling and success stories rather than the risks of the activity and how to stay safe. Through conversations with other participants, others noticed that there may be key information about gambling, such as its potential impact on credit scores or the existence of safer gambling tools, which they were not aware of, but considered important for making informed choices.
Once consumers chose to gamble, certain key pieces of information were identified as needed for informed choice, regardless of what gambling activity they engaged in. Participants first wanted to understand the trustworthiness and reputation of the gambling operator to ensure that they are gambling on a legal and safe platform. Once on a platform, they were primarily interested in understanding their potential wins and losses, game chances, game terms and conditions, and the risk associated with games. However, given the inherent complexity of gambling products, different types of players required specific additional information to remain informed based on their chosen activity: some sports bettors valued their own research and the consistent display of odds, while those playing casino-like games relied more on the information provided on the platform and needed more accessible support to help them understand the games.
A strongly valued piece of information was clear visibility over how much consumers could win, what the odds or payouts were, and how much they could lose. This suggests that gambling companies making the financial implications of gambling known and clearly visible is key to informed choice. Additional important information included immediate data tracking how much consumers had lost that day, the rules required to win, and clear parameters surrounding minimum deposits and withdrawal restrictions. This was particularly relevant as promotional offers sometimes featured hidden complexities or terms: one participant highlighted that it was sometimes unclear how much an individual was required to gamble before withdrawing funds9.
"You have got to gamble like £500 or something before you can even touch some of this money."
Male, 46, Online slot machines and online casino10
A consumer who accepts a bonus without understanding the wagering requirements may end up spending significantly more than they intended, simply because the terms were not presented clearly enough to support a genuinely informed decision.
Beyond immediate transactional details and game terms, ensuring an informed choice also required accessible information regarding the actual risks or consequences of gambling. This included which specific products could lead to more harm. While some participants believed that these risks may be common knowledge, operating on the assumption that individuals understand gambling involves potential financial loss, others expressed a desire for this information to be explicitly integrated into gambling platforms. This was particularly relevant when important safety alerts, such as pop-ups declaring the risks of gambling or explicitly stating that an individual could lose their entire stake, were absent or difficult to encounter at this preliminary stage.
The additional information needed to make informed decisions differed based on what games consumers were engaging with. Sport bettors represented a distinct cohort who used their own research, performing external internet searches to compare odds across different gambling companies to ensure they got the best price for their bet. This group valued the consistency with which odds were presented on platforms and considered it part of their accountability to look for the best odds and make informed choices. Still, we noticed two types of sports bettors: some felt well-informed and found it fun to hunt down the best odds at events, others struggled to interpret odds, found them too complex, and relied on friends for translation or ignored odds altogether when playing purely for fun.
Two further distinct cohorts were those playing slot and other casino-like games on a regular basis and those trying these games for the first time. The players who were trying new types of games relied more on operator information and desired more support to ensure they understood their decisions. These participants sometimes felt they were "going in blind" without knowing the true chance of winning or how to play the games. One participant described entering a game mid-session and losing money for 10 minutes because they did not understand the mechanics. Some had never heard of the Return to Player (RTP) metric, understood the term, or knew how to assess the odds in different games. This is aligned with previous experimental studies about the comprehension of gambling odds (opens in new tab) (PDF)11 which demonstrated that how statistical information is presented matters, and that common formats, such as RTP, are not well understood and could actually backfire by increasing consumers' perceived chances of winning. Consequently, these users preferred simplified explanations of terms and game mechanics before playing, so that they did not lose money before feeling informed. In contrast, experienced players had learned how to play games over the years, and they relied on their prior knowledge and own research to play common types of games, such as roulette. During the active search, they would simply choose the games they were already informed about.
Barriers and facilitators to making informed decisions when deciding what games to play
Several structural barriers and operational facilitators influenced how consumers processed information when deciding what games to play, including: busy platforms, information overemphasising big wins and animated language over key information about wins, rules, losses and chances, lack of clear instructions on physical gaming machines, and hard-to-find or absent safety information.
A primary barrier was the volume and salience of platform content, which actively distracted users when they were looking for key information. Participants reported that website user interfaces were cluttered and overwhelming, featuring bright lights, cartoons, and pop-up advertisements with enticing offers that contributed to a perceived information overload. This environment led users to ignore safety information entirely. As one participant explained:
"I only bet on the big games. So I don't want to see all the little games and sometimes they just bombard you with information. [...] what I need is sometimes a little bit more simplified."
Female, 56, In-person sports betting and in-person bingo
To facilitate better decision-making, participants suggested that online gambling companies could simplify website interfaces by reducing visual noise and improving the clarity of information on the site. This would lessen a consumer's susceptibility to flashy promotions and help them make more carefully considered choices. Other research goes a step further, and recommends that risk information and complex terms should be delivered separately from promotional content rather than competing for attention within the same visual frame (Parke et al., 2014)12.
Another barrier involved the tendency of game descriptions to focus disproportionately on potential wins rather than key information. When reading game descriptions, participants noted that the text focused heavily on wins or animated language rather than conveying the objective details they were actually interested in. Participants were interested in a number of issues such as the risk of addiction, the minimum stake, how much could be won over what time, and the likelihood of being a winner. For example, when playing online slots or casino products, users sought precise clarity regarding: “how each combination works, the probability of them coming up, the minimum bets, how much you can win over how much time.”
Some participants indicated that gambling companies could counteract a lack of useful game information and facilitate informed choice by utilising the registration page to provide useful information. Doing so would allow consumers to go "pre-armed" onto a platform with sufficient knowledge. This could include integrating due diligence questions upon sign-up and before entering games, harsher warnings informing people that all of their capital is at risk before placing a bet, and a frequently asked questions (FAQs) table before placing a bet to explain the terms in simple language. Additionally, ensuring that relevant betting and safety information, such as help links, remained accessible at all times, with the option to hide them, was raised as a valuable mechanism.
Accessibility and game complexity stood out as further interconnected barriers to informed choice. While some core parameters, such as deposit or time limits, have been made more accessible in recent updates (for example, being placed one click from home and deposit pages), participants still reported difficulty locating them in practice13. When safer gambling information lacks the visual prominence of surrounding content, or sits alongside high-stimulus promotions, it risks being overlooked. This was compounded by a broader deficit in comprehension regarding structural metrics like RTP; many participants were either entirely unaware of the concept or did not understand what it meant for their financial returns.
In physical venues, accessibility challenges manifested differently but remained distinct. Participants noted that there was a false assumption that when someone walked into a casino, they knew what they were doing. Physical gaming machines lacked explicit instructions, and venue staff did not proactively explain game operations. The sheer complexity of certain game designs and fruit machine mechanics frequently resulted in unexpected financial losses, with one participant stating:
"Some of the fruit machine kind of games are quite complicated and before you know it, you've lost a few quid without really understanding how."
Male, 46, Online slot machines and online casino games
Beyond accessibility, the lack of transparency in online environments also eroded trust in gambling companies more broadly. Some expressed scepticism that they were competing against an algorithm designed to hook a player early in a gambling session and then exploit them, a sentiment captured by one user:
"You normally win and then you feel like you're not hooked... and then eventually you probably lose it all."
Female, 57, Online casino games
This distrust was exacerbated by experiences where accounts were blocked following complaints about large losses. One participant said they lost money on a slot game without hitting a single game feature.
To resolve these barriers, participants identified several facilitators. For complex digital games, there was strong support for free-play or demo modes, enabling users to understand game mechanics safely before wagering real money. While these already exist in places, participants who proposed this did so as a new idea, suggesting low awareness of tools already available. Participants also suggested that gambling companies could integrate interactive AI chatbots capable of explaining technical jargon and extracting obscure information buried within dense terms and conditions, acting as an on-demand guide so that players are not gambling "blindly." More broadly, consumers wanted clearer and more simplified information for bets they were going to place and promotions they intended to use, clearer guidance on where to find safer gambling information, and a clear indication of the risk of addiction associated with each type of game.
On odds and RTP specifically, participants desired simplified displays, preferring a clear percentage chance of winning or intuitive visual representations presented prior to gambling. This was a particularly significant concern for online slots players, who described feeling as though they were going in blind. There was an accompanying call to humanise the display of chances by sharing stories of both winners and losers on the site to reframe the real-life implications of the activity.
Within physical gambling environments, one participant suggested that informed choice could be facilitated by making a brief check-in part of the standard experience for first-time visitors. For example, when a customer first enters a casino and shows their ID, staff could ask a few straightforward questions, such as 'have you bet before?', to gauge their experience level and offer explanations where helpful, rather than as a condition of play. More broadly, participants agreed that staff should be available to explain game mechanics when customers appear confused, struggling or looking for help.
The report continues in the next section.
References
9 The participant refers to wagering requirements, which require customers to wager a specified amount on the game(s) set out in a promotion’s terms and conditions before winnings can be withdrawn. In January 2026, the Gambling Commission introduced a 10x cap on wagering requirements. As the participant did not specify the level of wagering requirement they were referring to, it is not possible to determine whether their concerns relate to the current capped requirement or to previous practices.
10 Identifiers for participants are given as gender, age, most frequent form of gambling.
11 Weiss-Cohen, L., Palmer, M., Torrance, J. and Newall, P. (2025). Never tell me the odds: typical return-to-player information increases gamblers' perceived chances of winning. Addictive Behaviors, 168:108363.
12 Parke, A., Harris, A., Parke, J., Rigbye, J. and Blaszczynski, A. (2014). Facilitating awareness and informed choice in gambling. Journal of Gambling Business and Economics.
13 Following the Gambling Commission's Autumn 2023 consultation on the LCCP and Remote Technical Standards (response published February 2025), from 31 October 2025 all gambling businesses must prompt customers to set a financial limit before their first deposit, make limits easy to review and alter at any time (including via visible links on home and deposit pages), and remind customers at least every six months to review their account and transaction information. A further change clarifying that a 'deposit limit' must be a gross limit takes effect from 30 September 2026.
Last updated: 15 September 2026
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