Report
Gambling Survey for Great Britain Year 2 topic report: Investigating the profiles of those who gamble more frequently
This topic report uses data from Year 2 of the GSGB to explore the association between engagement in gambling activities, frequency of gambling, and risk.
Gambling frequency groups
The GSGB contains detailed questions identifying the frequency by which people gambled on different product types over the past 4 weeks. The response options include ‘every day’, ‘a few times a week’, ‘about once a week’, ‘about once a fortnight’, ‘about once’, and ‘not in the past 4 weeks’.
These questions were used to group survey participants into 4 categories:
Those who had gambled at least weekly in the past 4 weeks on any activity in addition to National Lottery or charity lottery draws, either online or in-person.
Those who had gambled at least weekly in the past 4 weeks but only on National Lottery or charity lottery draws, either online or in-person.
3, Those who had gambled on any activity, either online or in person, less frequently than weekly but within the past 4 weeks.
- Those who had gambled on any activity, either online or in person, less frequently than the past 4 weeks but within the past 12 months.
The first of these groups includes people who took part in a lottery draw at least weekly but only if they did so in addition to another activity. This group will be referred to throughout this report as ‘weekly gambling on any activity or activities in addition to lotteries ’ to highlight the fact that these are people gambling weekly on activities other than lotteries alone. Similarly, the second group will be referred to as ‘weekly lottery-only’, the third group are the ‘4-week group’, and the fourth the ’12-month group’.
Any individuals who had not gambled in the past 12 months were excluded from the analysis. Figure 1 shows the 4 groups with unweighted base (n) and proportion of the weighted sample. The weekly gambling on any activity or activities in addition to lotteries group contains 17 percent of the people who gambled in the past 12 months and is the smallest of the 4 groups. The weekly lottery-only group contains 22 percent of those who gambled in the past 12 months, the past 4-week group contains 40 percent, and the past 12-month group contains 21 percent. It should be noted that National Lottery draws are the most common activity, meaning National Lottery draws will dominate the activities partaken in both the past 4-week and past 12-month groups.
Figure 1: Sample groups
| Frequency | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Those who gambled in the past 12 months | 11,555 | n/a |
| Gamble weekly or more often | 4,487 | n/a |
| Gambled in the past 4 weeks but not in the past week | 4,661 | n/a |
| Gambled in the past 12 months but not the past 4 weeks | 2,407 | n/a |
| Weekly gambling on any activity or activities in addition to lotteries group | 1,780 | 17% |
| Weekly lottery only group | 2,707 | 22% |
| 4-week group | 4,661 | 40% |
| 12-month group | 2,407 | 21% |
Investigating the profiles of those who gamble more frequently - Introduction Next section
Investigating the profiles of those who gamble more frequently - Composition of the gambling frequency groups
Last updated: 9 October 2025
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