Report

Young People and Gambling 2022

Gambling Commission report produced by Ipsos on young people and their gambling behaviour, attitudes and awareness in 2022.

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Published
10 November 2022

Last updated
9 November 2022 - Changes

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Contents

• Young People and Gambling 2022

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• Executive summary
• - Introduction
• - Headline statistics
• - Presentation and interpretation of data
• - Acknowledgements
• Young people’s active involvement in gambling
• - Summary
• - Young people's active involvement in gambling
• - Variations in active involvement in gambling
• - Variations in active involvement in types of gambling activities
• - Prevalence of non-problem, at risk or problem gambling
• - Problem gambling by gender
• - Problem gambling by age
• - Problem gambling by ethnicity
• Experience of gambling
• - Summary
• - Overall gambling experience
• - Overall gambling experience in the last 12 months
• - Variations in gambling experience
• The Impact of gambling on young people
• - Summary
• - How gambling impacts on relations with friends and family
• - How gambling makes young people feel
• - The impact of gambling on sleep
• - The impact of gambling on spending
• - The impact of gambling on schoolwork
• - Experience and impact of family members’ gambling
• Online gambling
• - Summary
• - Young people’s active involvement in online gambling
• - Overall experience of online gambling
• - Online gambling using parent's or guardian's accounts
• - Awareness and use of in-game items in video games
• National Lottery play
• - Summary
• - Young people’s active involvement with lottery products
• - Wider experience of lottery games
• - Buying a National Lottery draw ticket or scratchcard
• - Who young people are with when playing a National Lottery product?
• Games and gaming machines
• - Summary
• - Young people’s active involvement in games and gaming machines
• - Overall experience of games and gaming machines play
• - Who is with young people when they play gaming machines?
• - Types of gaming machines
• - Play in an adults-only area
• The Context for gambling participation
• - Summary
• - Setting gambling in the context of other risk-taking behaviours
• - Setting gambling in the context of other activities
• - Reasons why young people gamble
• - Why young people don’t gamble
• - Who young people were with when they gambled
• Attitudes towards and exposure to gambling
• - Summary
• - Young people’s views on gambling
• - Feeling informed about gambling
• - Being stopped from gambling
• - Young people’s exposure to gambling adverts and promotions and frequency of exposure
• - Content of gambling adverts and promotions seen
• - Whether ever prompted to gamble by adverts and promotions
• - Following gambling companies on social media
• Appendices
• - Applying the DSM-IV-MR-J problem gambler screen
• - Research design
• - Sample profile
• List of gambling activities and definitions
• - List of gambling activities
• - Definitions

Why young people don’t gamble

A lack of interest in gambling is the most common reason cited by young people for never spending their own money on it (39 percent).

However, a similar proportion did not participate in gambling activities because it is illegal or thought they were too young (37 percent). This was followed by young people not wanting to play with real money and/or they would rather play with free games (25 percent), not being allowed to gamble by their parents (24 percent) and because it may lead to future problems (22 percent).

Figure 23: Reasons for not gambling - Top Ten responses (plus 'Other' and 'Don't know')

Figure 23 information

GC_NEVER. You said that you have never gambled or never spent your own money on gambling. Why is that?
Base: All 11 to 16 year olds answering who have never spent their own money on gambling (1346).
Note: This is a multiple response question, so the responses shown will not add up to 100 percent.

Figure 23: Reasons for not gambling - Top Ten responses (plus 'Other' and 'Don't know'.

Reasons for not gambling	Percentage (multiple response question, therefore answers do not sum to 100 percent)
It’s not something I’m interested in	39%
It’s illegal and/or I’m too young to do this	37%
I don’t want to play with real money and/or I would rather play free games	25%
My parents would not want me to and/or allow me to	24%
Because it might lead to future problems	22%
Because I will lose more than I will win	21%
I don’t agree with gambling and/or it is not right	21%
Because I am not likely to win money	19%
I don’t know enough about these gambling games	11%
It is against my religion	10%
Other	2%
Don't know	9%

There were gender differences with girls (43 percent) more likely than boys (35 percent) to cite gambling not being an activity that they were interested in as a reason why they did not gamble. Boys (25 percent) were more likely than girls (19 percent) not to gamble because it may lead to future problems.

There were also age differences. 11 to 13 year olds were more likely to mention that their parents do not allow them to gamble than 14 to 16 year olds (29 percent compared with 19 percent), and were more likely to state that they did not agree with gambling than 14 to 16 year olds (26 percent compared with 17 percent).

Young people from ethnic minority groups were more likely than those who are white to cite reasons such as parents’ objection (32 percent compared with 21 percent), not agreeing with gambling (32 percent compared with 16 percent) and gambling being against their religion (29 percent compared with 1 percent).

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Who young people were with when they gambled

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Last updated: 9 November 2022

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