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
- Executive summary
- 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
- Awareness and use of virtual money or tokens to bet on sports matches
- 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 do not 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
- List of gambling activities and definitions
How gambling makes young people feel
Young people who had spent their own money on gambling in the last 12 months were asked how it affected their happiness, and whether it ever made them feel sad or guilty.
For the majority, their involvement in gambling does not lead to feelings of guilt or sadness: only 4 percent agreed with the statement ‘I feel sad when I gamble’ and only 6 percent agreed with the statement ‘I feel guilty when I gamble’. They are less clear on whether gambling makes them feel happy; just under one in five (17 percent) agree, but three in ten (29 percent) disagree and a similar proportion (26 percent) are unsure either way.
Figure 6: How gambling makes young people feel
Figure 6 information
GC_EXPHAP GC_EXPGUIL GC_EXPSAD. Thinking about your experiences of gambling, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
Base: All 11 to 17 year olds answering who have spent their own money gambling in the last 12 months 'I feel happy when I gamble' (805). 'I feel guilty when I gamble' (802). 'I feel sad when I gamble' (803).
How gambling makes young people feel | Percentage who strongly agree | Percentage who agree | Percentage who neither agree nor disagree | Percentage who disagree | Percentage who strongly disagree | Percentage who don't know |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
I feel sad when I gamble | 3% | 1% | 14% | 27% | 29% | 26% |
I feel guilty when I gamble | 3% | 3% | 15% | 25% | 28% | 25% |
I feel happy when I gamble | 4% | 13% | 28% | 13% | 16% | 26% |
Those young people in the ‘at risk’ group were significantly more likely than all responders and those deemed to be ‘non-problem gamblers’ to agree that gambling makes them happy (32 percent compared to 17 percent and 14 percent respectively).
This year, the ‘at risk’ group were also more likely than ‘non-problem’ gamblers to disagree that gambling makes them feel sad (69 percent compared to 54 percent).
Those aged 13 years old were more likely to disagree with the statements that they feel happy when they gamble (35 percent compared to 29 percent) and that they feel sad when they gambled, compared to all respondents (62 percent compared to 55 percent) and those in a slightly younger age group (62 percent compared to 50 percent of 12 year olds). Respondents aged 13 were also more likely than all other respondents to disagree that they felt guilty when they gamble (60 percent compared to 54 percent).
Boys were more likely than girls to agree that gambling makes them feel guilty (10 percent compared to 2 percent). However, this pattern was not apparent in 2022. While the proportion for girls has remained constant since 2022, the proportion of boys who agreed that gambling makes them feel guilty has increased by 5 percentage points from 5 percent in 2022.
There was no difference by ethnicity.
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The impact of gambling on sleep
Last updated: 16 November 2023
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