Report

Young People and Gambling 2024: Official statistics

Gambling Commission report produced by Ipsos on young people and their gambling behaviour, attitudes and awareness in 2024.

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Published
7 November 2024

Last updated
7 November 2024 - Changes

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Contents

• Young People and Gambling 2024: 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
  • Definitions
  • Young people's active involvement in gambling
  • The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition – Multiple Response Juvenile (DSM-IV-MR-J) problem gambling screen
• The impacts of gambling on young people
• • Summary
  • The impact of gambling on relationships
  • Young people’s feelings when gambling
  • The impact of gambling on young people’s engagement with school and homework
  • The impact of gambling on young people’s sleep
  • The impact of gambling on spending
  • Experience of ever seeing a family member gambling
  • The impact of family members’ gambling on young people
• Wider experience of gambling
• • Summary
  • Wider experience and active involvement in gambling
  • Experience of different gambling activities
  • Who young people were with when they experienced gambling activities
  • Being stopped from gambling for being too young
  • Setting gambling in the context of other risk taking behaviours
• Games and gaming machines
• • Summary
  • Young people spending their own money on games and gaming machines
  • Overall experience of playing games and gaming machines
  • Who young people were with when they played gaming machines
  • Types of gaming machine played
  • Playing arcade machines in adults-only areas
• Online gambling
• • Summary
  • Young people’s active involvement in online gambling
  • Overall experience of online gambling
  • Online gambling using parents’ or guardians’ accounts
  • Paying for and betting with in-game items in video games
  • Methods of paying for in-game items and to open loot boxes
• Lotteries and lottery style games
• • Summary
  • Active involvement with lotteries and lottery style games
  • Wider experience of lotteries and lottery style games
  • Buying a National Lottery draw ticket or scratchcard
  • Who young people were with when playing lotteries and lottery style games
• Attitudes towards gambling and reasons for gambling
• • Summary
  • Reasons why young people gamble
  • Reasons why young people do not gamble
  • Feeling informed about gambling
• Recall of gambling adverts and promotion
• • Summary
  • Recall of gambling advertising or promotions
  • Frequency of seeing or hearing gambling adverts or promotions
  • Perceived impact of gambling adverts on unplanned spending
  • Engagement with gambling related content on social media and streaming platforms
• Appendices
• • Applying the DSM-IV-MR-J youth adapted problem gambling screen
  • Research design
  • Sample profile
• List of gambling activities and definitions
• • List of gambling activities
  • Definitions

Summary

This section focuses on young people’s active involvement in and experience with games and gaming machines in the last 12 months. It highlights the most popular forms of gaming machines, many of which are legal activities for this age group, as well as who young people were with when playing games and the extent to which they have been played in adults-only areas of venues such as holiday parks and arcades.

Findings are compared with previous years of the survey to identify trends. Statistically significant differences are highlighted across the years 2022 to 2024, though the 2022 sample did not include year 12 pupils or independent schools and so comparisons with this year are indicative only.

Definitions

Games and gaming machines

This includes the following activities:

• played arcade gaming machines (for example penny pusher or claw grab machine)
• played fruit or slot machines (for example at an arcade, pub or social club)
• played gambling machines in a betting shop
• played cards for money (for example with friends or family).

Accessing adults-only areas

Young people who recalled playing arcade gaming machines were asked if they had ever done so in an adults-only area, for example an adults (18 years old and above) only section of an amusement arcade, bowling alley, holiday park or pub.

Exactly 1 in 5 (20 percent) young people had spent their own money on arcade gaming machines such as penny pushers or claw grab machines in the last 12 months. In comparison, 4 percent of young people had spent their own money playing fruit or slot machines and 1 percent on playing gambling machines in a betting shop. Exactly 1 in 20 (5 percent) had spent their own money playing cards for money in the past year.

When broadening the scope to look at overall experiences amongst young people (regardless of whether or not they spent their own money on them), arcade gaming machines continued to be the most common type of gambling activity amongst young people, with 3 in 10 (30 percent) having played them in the last 12 months. Fewer young people (7 percent) had played fruit or slot machines in the last 12 months, whilst 1 percent reported having played gambling machines in a betting shop. Around 1 in 12 (8 percent) had played cards for money (for example with friends or family).

Just over half of young people were with a parent or guardian when they last played a gaming machine (56 percent when playing arcade gaming machines and 52 percent when playing fruit and slot machines). Around 1 in 20 (4 percent) noted that when they last played an arcade gaming machine, they were alone, rising to around 1 in 10 (9 percent) who were alone when they last played a fruit or slot machine.

In terms of specific types of arcade games machines, penny pusher machines and claw grab machines were, by some distance, the most likely types of games machine to be played, with both having been played by 7 in 10 (70 percent) young people who had some experience of playing gaming machines.

Of young people, 1 in 10 with experience of arcade gaming machines reported having played a machine within an adults-only area (10 percent), with boys more likely than girls (13 percent, compared to 6 percent).

Next section
Young people spending their own money on games and gaming machines

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Last updated: 7 November 2024

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