Report

Young People and Gambling 2022: Official statistics

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: Official statistics

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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

The impact of gambling on spending

Young people who actively gambled in the last 12 months were asked if their own gambling had stopped them buying things that they wanted or, conversely, helped them to buy things that they needed.

Reflecting the perceived impact on households of family members gambling, as discussed in the next section, young people were most likely to highlight that gambling had helped them to buy things that they needed either all of the time, often or sometimes (12 percent). They were less likely to say that their own gambling stopped them from buying things that they wanted (5 percent).

There were no statistical differences by age or gender.

Figure 8: The impact of gambling on spending

Figure 8 information

GC_GAMBSTBUY GC_GAMBHPBUY. Thinking about the last 12 months, how often, if at all, has your own gambling led to any of the following things?
Base: All 11 to 16 year olds answering who have spent their own money gambling in the last 12 months: “Stopped you from buying things you have wanted” (721), 'Helped you buy things you have needed' (720), 'Made it hard for you to put effort into your school work, homework or personal study' (722).
Note: Where percentages for a question do not add up to 100 percent, this is due to computer rounding.

Figure 8: The impact of gambling on spending

Impact	Percentage who never	Percentage who rarely	Percentage who sometimes	Percentage who often	Percentage who all the time	Percentage who don't know
Helped you buy things you have needed	76%	7%	6%	4%	2%	4%
Stopped you from buying things you have wanted	88%	4%	2%	1%	1%	3%

Previous section
The impact of gambling on sleep Next section
The impact of gambling on schoolwork

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Last updated: 9 November 2022

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