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Report

Insights into affected others from the GSGB

Insights into affected others from the GSGB

Published
14 May 2026

Last updated
14 May 2026 - Changes

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  1. Contents
  2. Background

Background

Despite a growing evidence base, there is still relatively little research focusing on those affected by someone else’s gambling, especially within Great Britain. These individuals are often referred to as affected others. Although this term is commonly used, its acceptance is not universal. After consulting with our Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP), it was agreed that it was appropriate to use this term in our work.

As identified in our Evidence Roadmap we wanted to understand more about the experiences of people affected by someone else’s gambling. The inclusion of questions on the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) about the severe and potentially adverse consequences people may experience because of someone else’s gambling provided the opportunity to do that.

The questions on the GSGB were developed as part of a broader shift towards a more holistic understanding of gambling-related harm. This approach moves beyond solely relying on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), which does not fully capture the wide range of adverse consequences people may experience from their own gambling, nor the broader harms experienced by friends, family and the wider community. The questions have been included in the GSGB since its launch in 2023, capturing the consequences of gambling both from one’s own gambling and someone else’s. The focus of this report is on the latter; research on the consequences experienced from one’s own gambling can be found elsewhere1,2.

The impacts covered by these questions are underpinned partly by Wardle and others (2018) framework for action on gambling-related harm (opens in new tab) , which group gambling-related harms into 3 key areas:

  • resources – for example, financial pressure, or difficulty managing money
  • relationships – such as conflict, tension, or social isolation
  • health – including stress, worry or emotional strain.

The GSGB survey questions distinguish between 2 types of adverse consequences, covering impacts across these 3 areas.

Severe adverse consequences – where any experience of them, even only once, would have a serious negative impact. This includes relationship breakdown, losing something of significant financial value, violence or abuse, and crime. These are asked as “Yes” or “No” questions.

Potential adverse consequences – which are more likely to be harmful if experienced often or may be harmful depending on the individual’s specific circumstances. This includes spending less on everyday items, increased use of credit or savings to gamble, experience of conflict within relationships, feeling isolated, lying about the extent of gambling and poor work performance or work absences. These are measured on a four-point frequency scale, ranging from “Never” to “Very often”.

Full wording of the questions and a detailed list of consequences asked in the GSGB survey can be found in the Methods section.

The latest GSGB (2024) annual survey shows that almost half (48.0 percent) of participants reported that someone close to them gambled, even if occasionally. Of these participants, 5.3 percent had experienced one or more severe adverse consequences from someone else’s gambling and 19.0 percent had experienced at least one potential adverse consequence from someone else’s gambling3. Using this as a starting point, we undertook a deeper analysis to identify those most likely to be considered affected others. Ultimately, the aim of this work was to develop a clearer understanding of this group, and feed into our evidence roadmap exploring the impact on people who gamble and affected others.

References

1 Statistics on gambling participation – Annual report Year 2 (2024): Official statistics

2 Qualitative research on the consequences of gambling

3 It should be noted that in the GSGB data available on the UKDS data archive, the derived variables assessing when a participant has experienced a potential adverse consequence only include 6 of the 9 adverse consequences (see Methods section for breakdown and reasoning). As a result, deriving rates of experiencing adverse consequences using these variables will derive different rates than this analysis, which included all 9 questions when considering potential adverse consequences.

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Affected others - Methods
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