Report
Lived experiences of affected others: Qualitative research
Lived experiences of affected others: Qualitative research
Gambling activities
Across the sample, affected others drew a consistent and significant distinction between in-person and online gambling as experiences with fundamentally different risk profiles and different implications for the affected other.
In-person or land-based gambling, particularly the forms most associated with social contexts (like bingo halls, bookmakers, casinos) was generally perceived as more contained. It had visible constraints, wherein someone left the house, spent a defined amount of time away, finished and then returned. Even where losses were significant, the activity had natural limits imposed by physical opening hours, in some cases the use of cash, and the social presence of other people. Several participants described in-person gambling as something that felt at least legible, even when it was harmful.
"We used to go to the bingo together quite a lot for a fun night out that was cheap, then about 8 years ago he started online gambling. He was open about it, we’d sit and play together occasionally. It was exciting at first but then I noticed he was doing it a lot more and once I said this isn’t casual anymore, you’re doing it all the time. When we were out with friends, he’d be on his phone and you could tell he had it running in the background, he was always distracted."
- Female gambler, 38, friend of person gambling
Online and app-based gambling, particularly mobile casino and slot games, was experienced in near-opposite terms. The defining features, from the affected other perspective, were invisibility, constancy, and the removal of any natural stopping point. A phone looked the same whether someone was sending a message or playing a slot game. Gambling could happen at the dinner table, in bed, in the toilet during a night out. There was nothing to see, and therefore nothing to name.
This invisibility had direct consequences for affected others. It delayed recognition of problematic behaviours, often significantly. It made monitoring both necessary and exhausting, generating the hypervigilance described throughout The consequences of someone else’s gambling section, with participants checking phones, watching bank statements, and developing an alertness to small behavioural cues that might signal gambling was happening. And it removed the possibility of casual observation as a route to early intervention, as by the time an affected other had enough evidence to name what was happening, losses had typically already occurred.
"He could be sat on his phone and I'll think, 'oh, he's just replying to a text.' But actually, he could have been doing slots. It just made it too normal, too easy, too okay."
- Female gambler, 27, partner of person gambling
The shift from in-person or social gambling to individual mobile-based gambling was identified by many participants as the turning point, not just in the person gambling’s behaviour, but in the affected other’s ability to identify what was happening and respond to it.
Last updated: 25 June 2026
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