Report
Gambling behaviour and harm among people from different ethnic groups
This report examines how gambling participation, gambling risk, adverse consequences and use of support services vary among people from different ethnic groups.
Executive summary
This report examines how gambling participation, gambling risk, adverse consequences and use of support services vary among people from different ethnic groups. It draws on pooled data from the 2023, 2024 and 2025 Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB). Pooling 3 years of data provided a sufficiently large sample to examine participants from White, Mixed or Multiple ethnic, Asian, Black and Other ethnic backgrounds separately.
The research builds on our previous report, in which we found higher rates of adverse consequences among participants from ethnic minority backgrounds, including at lower Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) scores. However, limited sample sizes meant that participants from different ethnic minority backgrounds had to be considered together. This report provides a more detailed picture by examining individual ethnic groups.
The analysis compared:
- the prevalence of gambling among people from different ethnic groups (including engagement in specific activities, the number of activities undertaken and gambling frequency)
- PGSI scores among those from different ethnic groups
- the experience of severe adverse and other potential adverse consequences from gambling among those from different ethnic groups
- the use of help and support services for gambling among those from different ethnic groups.
Key findings
Overall gambling participation was lower among participants from ethnic minority backgrounds than those from White backgrounds. However, this difference was largely driven by lower levels of lottery draw participation among ethnic minority groups. Across most non-lottery draw gambling activities, participants from ethnic minority backgrounds reported higher levels of engagement than those from White backgrounds. Those from ethnic minority backgrounds also reported gambling on a wider range of activities, despite gambling less overall.
Participants from ethnic minority backgrounds had higher PGSI scores than those from White backgrounds, including those with a PGSI score of 8 or more. Estimates varied from 1.9% for those from White backgrounds to 7.7% for those from Mixed and/or Multiple ethnic backgrounds. These differences persisted after accounting for demographic and socio-economic characteristics and gambling participation.
Participants from ethnic minority backgrounds also reported substantially higher rates of adverse consequences from gambling, often 3 to 4 times higher than those from White backgrounds. As with PGSI scores, this difference persisted for most ethnic groups once demographic, socio-economic and wider gambling factors were taken into account. The exception was those from Black backgrounds where the excess harm was mostly explained by demographic or gambling factors.
Among those who gambled in the past 4 weeks, participants from ethnic minority backgrounds were more likely than those from White backgrounds to report adverse gambling-related consequences, even when they had similar PGSI scores. This disparity was most pronounced at lower levels of gambling risk and narrowed substantially as PGSI scores increased. For example, among participants with a PGSI score of 0, at least one adverse consequence was reported by approximately 2.7% of those from White backgrounds, compared with around 7% to 10% of participants from ethnic minority backgrounds. However, among those with PGSI scores of 8 or more, the prevalence of adverse consequences was similarly high across all ethnic groups, ranging from 92% to 100%.
Use of gambling support services was also higher among those from ethnic minority backgrounds but remained well below the proportion reporting elevated PGSI scores or adverse consequences, suggesting that support-seeking has not kept pace with need.
This report highlights the importance of disaggregating the data on gambling participation by gambling activity. Only looking at headline figures of participation masks wider and varied patterns of gambling among people from different ethnic backgrounds.
This report references information that can be found in the ethnic group topic report findings excel files that accompany this report.
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Introduction - Gambling behaviour and harm among people from different ethnic groups
Last updated: 27 October 2026
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