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
8 November 2024 - 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

Headline statistics

Of young people, 27 percent spent their own money on gambling in the 12 months prior to taking part in the survey.

During that period, the most common types of gambling activity that young people spent their own money on were legal or did not feature age restricted products, namely:

• playing arcade gaming machines such as penny pusher or claw grab machines (20 percent)
• placing a bet for money between friends or family (11 percent)
• playing cards for money (5 percent).

The survey found 21 percent of young people were spending their own money on regulated forms of gambling (which includes some activities that are legal and played within licensed premises), and 15 percent on unregulated forms of gambling (gambling activities which fall outside the remit of the Gambling Commission).

When removing arcade gaming machines, which are legally accessible to young people, 6 percent spent their own money on regulated forms of gambling. This is an increase from 4 percent in 2023.

A total of 1.5 percent of young people scored 4 or more on the youth-adapted problem gambling screen (DSM-IV-MR-J), 1.9 percent scored 2 or 3, and 23.2 percent scored 0 or 1. The proportion of young people overall scoring 4 or more on the DSM-IV-MR-J has risen from 0.7 percent in 2023 to 1.5 percent in 2024.

Just over 1 in 10 (11 percent) said that their own gambling had led them to talk to their parents about how they felt while 9 percent said that gambling had made them feel uncomfortable around their friends (such as feeling embarrassed or feeling friends would not approve), at least sometimes.

A quarter of young people (26 percent) had seen family members they live with gamble, and of that 26 percent, 9 percent indicated that it had resulted in more arguments or tension at home.

Awareness of advertising and marketing has increased between 2023 and 2024 but remains in line with where it was in 2022.

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Last updated: 8 November 2024

Show updates to this content

Clarification added to the percentage of children that indicated that gambling had resulted in more arguments or tension at home.