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 covers young people’s active involvement in gambling, based on self-reported experiences of spending their own money on gambling activities in the past 12 months. It includes analysis of the demographic profile of those who reported gambling with their own money over this period.

Findings are compared with previous years of the survey to identify trends. Statistically significant differences are highlighted across the years 2022, 2023 and 2024, though the 2022 sample did not include year 12 pupils or independent schools and so comparisons with this year are indicative only.

Just over a quarter of young people (27 percent) reported having gambled using their own money in the 12 months preceding the survey. Playing arcade gaming machines remained the most frequent gambling activity among 11 to 17 year olds (20 percent had spent their own money on this in the past year). There was no significant change overall in young people’s levels of active gambling since 2023, though there was a statistically significant increase in the proportion of young people actively involved in regulated gambling excluding arcade gaming machines (6 percent in 2024, compared to 4 percent in 2023).

The youth-adapted problem gambling screen: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition – Multiple Response Juvenile (DSM-IV-MR-J) was used to identify gambling behaviours among young people that participated in the survey. A total of 1.5 percent of young people scored 4 or more on the DSM-IV-MR-J, 1.9 percent scored 2 or 3, and 23.2 percent scored 0 or 1. The proportion of young people scoring 4 or more on the DSM-IV-MR-J increased from 0.7 percent in 2023 to 1.5 percent in 2024.

Next section
Definitions

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Last updated: 7 November 2024

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