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

Wider experience of lotteries and lottery style games

Taking into account all experiences over the past 12 months, just under 1 in 10 (9 percent) of young people had experience of some form of lottery or lottery style game. The most common was National Lottery scratchcards (played by 7 percent), followed by National Lottery draw games (3 percent), and National Lottery online instant win games (1 percent).

Boys were more likely than girls to have had experience of lotteries and lottery style games in the past 12 months (10 percent compared with 7 percent). Young people who had seen family members gamble (16 percent) and those from white ethnic groups (10 percent) were also comparatively more likely to have had experience in the last 12 months.

When looking across the last 3 years, the proportion of young people who had experienced lotteries and lottery style games was higher in 2024 (9 percent) than in 2023 (7 percent).

Table 6.1: Overall experience of lotteries and lottery style games

Table 6.1 information

GAMSPENDWHEN: When did you last do [this activity or these activities]?
Base: All answering in 2022 (2,559), 2023 (3,453), 2024 (3,869).

Table 6.1: Overall experience of lotteries and lottery style games

Lotteries and lottery style games	2022 (percentage)	2023 (percentage)	2024 (percentage)	Statistical differences 2024 compared to 2022	Statistical differences 2024 compared to 2023
Any lottery or lottery style game	10%	7%	9%	No significant difference	Significant increase
National Lottery scratchcards (not free scratchcards)	8%	6%	7%	No significant difference	No significant difference
National Lottery draw	3%	2%	3%	Significant increase	No significant difference
National Lottery online instant win games	1%	1%	1%	No significant difference	No significant difference
Other Lotteries (for example The Health Lottery, People's Postcode Lottery, or other smaller lotteries)	1%	Less than 0.5%	1%	No significant difference	Significant increase

In this context, ‘experience’ of lotteries and lottery style games could entail spending their own money to play National Lottery games, or it could mean being involved without spending their own money, which might potentially include picking lottery numbers or scratching off the numbers on someone else’s ticket or card.

Previous section
Active involvement with lotteries and lottery style games Next section
Buying a National Lottery draw ticket or scratchcard

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Last updated: 7 November 2024

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