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Report

Young People and Gambling 2023: Official statistics

Gambling Commission report produced by Ipsos on young people and their gambling behaviour, attitudes and awareness in 2023.

Contents


Summary

This section focuses on online gambling, examining in more detail active involvement and experience over the last 12 months, as well as awareness of eSports and in-game items.

Throughout this section we make comparisons to 2022 data. However, it should be noted that while the 2023 sample included year 12 pupils and independent schools, these were not included in the 2022 sample and therefore any differences between the two years are indicative only.

The proportion of 11 to 17 year olds who were actively involved in online gambling in the last 12 months is low; with the most common activities being betting on eSports, betting on a website or apps, and playing casino games online (1 percent respectively). Less than 1 percent of young people spent their own money on National Lottery online instant win games and online bingo.

Young people were more likely to use their parent's or guardian's accounts for online gambling with their permission (6 percent), rather than without (2 percent) when engaging in online gambling activities.

Overall, 45 percent of young people had heard of in-game items when playing video games and two in five (38 percent) had heard of paying money to open loot boxes. Awareness of, and participation in, paying for in-game items and opening loot boxes was notably higher among boys than girls, reflecting their overall higher levels of involvement in online gambling.

Notably, the closer the use of in-game items gets to gambling the lower the levels of awareness and usage are, with only 2 percent of young people having personally bet with in-game items outside of the game they were playing.

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Young people’s active involvement in online gambling
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