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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.

Contents


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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