Report
Measuring gambling-related harm: Validating a summary metric of potential adverse consequences
Examining whether reporting one or more potential adverse consequences from gambling provides a valid population-level indicator of gambling-related harm.
Introduction
Protecting vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling is one of the Gambling Commission's core licensing objectives. Our Evidence Roadmaps identify the need to build our understanding of how gambling harms are experienced and who is most at risk (the Commission, 2025a).
To assess the prevalence of gambling-related harm within the population, we developed a set of survey questions that focus on some of the adverse consequences people might experience from gambling (the Commission, 2024a). This enabled us to broaden our understanding of gambling-related harm rather than simply relying on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI, Ferris & Wynne, 2001 (opens in new tab)) as the only indicator. The questions align with Wardle et al.'s (2018) Framework for Action (opens in new tab), which categorises gambling-related harm across 3 domains:
- resources, including financial strain and reduced spending on everyday items
- relationships, including conflict, isolation, and dishonesty with family
- health, including psychological distress, such as stress and anxiety.
The survey questions distinguish between severe consequences, which are clearly and unequivocally harmful (for example, relationship breakdown or violence), and potential adverse consequences, which vary in severity and could have more cumulative effects on people's lives (for example, reducing spend on everyday items). We found that responses to these questions predicted variance in mental wellbeing beyond that explained by PGSI scores alone, suggesting that they provide a valid and conceptually distinct measure of gambling harm ((PGSI, Ferris & Wynne, 2001 (opens in new tab)), the Commission, 2024a).
In previous Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) publications, we reported the percentage of people who endorsed each ‘potential adverse consequence’ individually (that is, those responding 'occasionally', 'fairly often', or 'very often'). Going forward, we plan to report trends in potential adverse consequences over time, and this requires a summary metric that captures their overall prevalence across the population. One approach that we have used in this year’s GSGB publication is to report the percentage of people who endorse 'one or more' potential adverse consequences from gambling.
The primary aim of this report was to assess whether the prevalence of one or more potential adverse consequences provides a valid indicator of gambling-related harm. To test this, we examined whether participants who report one or more potential adverse consequences have poorer outcomes on measures of health and wellbeing, compared with those who do not report adverse consequences. The purpose of this comparison was not to establish a causal link between potential adverse consequences and wellbeing, but to test whether the 2 are associated: If the summary metric captures meaningful experiences of harm, then people who report one or more potential adverse consequences would be expected to have poorer wellbeing than those who do not. We also explored the extent to which these groups differ on a range of demographic characteristics and gambling behaviours. Results from this analysis will inform how we monitor and report adverse consequences in future GSGB publications, and provide insight into who is most at risk.
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Method - Measuring gambling-related harm: Validating a summary metric of potential adverse consequences
Last updated: 16 July 2026
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