Report
Young people and gambling: Qualitative research
Qualitative research conducted by 2CV, with 11 to 17 year olds, to build on and contextualise the findings from the annual Young People and Gambling survey.
3 - How the changing spaces of gambling reduces supervision
In 2CV’s previous research, we found that engaging with gambling or gambling style activities during childhood was common, but participation was primarily passive - typically a product of being present and/or involved with other people’s gambling, rather than actively ‘faking’ age to gamble underage.
This was supported by 2CV’s latest research - with young people’s early exposure to, and education of gambling, often as a result of gambling activities with or organised by adults, such as category D Machines (such as penny pushers) on family trips to the arcades, fairs, and beaches.
For young people, Category D machines are associated with fond childhood memories and not considered as gambling. Often part of special occasions on family days out, holidays at the beach or trips to the arcade, fair or theme park they can be seen as bonding moments with family or friends. As highlighted in the ‘defining gambling through the eyes of young people’ section, because of the relatively small amounts of money spent, arcade gaming machines, like penny pushers and claw grab machines, are types of gambling activities where the direct links to ‘gambling’ were less understood. However, they did provide positive learning behaviours as they experience safe forms of winning and losing.
Case study
Sarah, 12 years old, from Scotland fondly remembers visiting arcades whilst on holidays with her family in their caravan. She remembers playing and ‘actually’ winning on the claw machine and associates them with fun memories she has at that time and moments to bond with her family. Generally, she relates arcade machines to these moments of fun where she is trying to win a teddy bear after multiple attempts and celebrating with her family. It is also with her family that she remembers times of spending beyond the limit (£3) and feeling guilty that she needed to tell her Mum. Despite being aware of the risks and having occasionally spent more than she wanted to, she still views the experience as a fun part of a day out at the arcade.
"When I went on holiday to the caravan, I actually went on a claw machine, and I actually won."
In addition, as figure 1 shows, young people were often introduced to age-restricted forms of gambling by taking part in gambling activities organised or facilitated by adults (using parents’ money to pay for these different types of gambling activities, rather than their own money). Examples of other forms of early supervised gambling style activities for young people came in the form of shared family moments with examples including:
- picking horses for a grandparent
- picking football teams for their brother to bet on
- accompanying Mum to the shop to buy lottery tickets
- gifting National Lottery Scratchcards (purchased by a parent) to a sibling for their 18th birthday
- attending a charity horse racing event with family.
"One of my friends started when they were 15-ish. That’s because their Dad let him put a bet on every once in a while. So, he’d put like a tenner on, but it would be some outrageous bet which he had no chance of winning."
Male, 16 to 17 years old, Scotland
Figure 1: Exposure to gambling
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8 to 11 years old (arcades)
Limited to no awareness of gambling.
Enjoying the experience of going to the arcade, fairs, and beach with family.
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11 to 13 years old (light gaming)
Still going to the arcade, fair, and beach but starting to have these experiences with friends and less adult supervision. Experiencing, but not aware of, gambling like features in games they play for example Roblox and FIFA.
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13 to 15 years old (heavy gaming, social media and sport)
Greater independence, more gambling experiences without supervision, and using their own money more often.
Experiencing a mix of real-life gambling activities, for example less frequent arcade trips, and online gambling like features via console gaming.
Becoming more aware of gambling ads in day-to-day lives, through sport (sponsorships and advertising) and social media.
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15 years old and above (betting apps)
Greater exposure to friends or family gambling, more occurrences of it in conversations.
Extra disposable income from part-time work can create more opportunities to gamble.
Some are introduced to sports betting apps by family or friends and may be starting to move to more age-restricted activities through the setting up of online accounts.
The search for independence increases as young people grow up - from 13 years old and above, vulnerability increases with increased exposure to gambling and more disposable income.
We heard that other factors such as religion can have an impact on experiences and actions, with religion in some instances acting as a barrier to gambling activities with family.
"As a 17 year old, my experience in gambling is very limited. The only times I’ve gambled is when I’ve been with my friends as, in my religion, you’re technically not meant to gamble (Islam). When we do bet it would be with small sums or a forfeit that someone must do."
Male, 16 to 17 years old, Scotland
This early form of supervision is clearly an important part of young peoples’ early exposure to gambling-like activities and the education and learning that comes from adult supervision. Practicing and learning from less risky forms of gambling-like activities have the potential to equip them with financial skills in later life, particularly as the ‘stakes’ are lower. This idea of ongoing behavioural learning and development also relates to how young people learn about money. The research conducted by 2CV on behalf of Money and Pensions Service (opens in new tab) showed how young people lacked the opportunities to ‘practice’ money management. Those who did experience financial regrets spoke of the importance of ‘learning’ from their mistakes.
Conversations on limiting spending and time, seeing and experiencing ‘winning and losing’ (as noted in the quote below) is a critical first step in the journey of understanding how to gamble responsibly.
"I spent over the limit [£3] and then I had to tell my Mum, but my Mum was understanding because I wanted to get something really badly… She said don’t spend that much money again because you can spend it on saving it for something or you can get sweets or something like that."
Female, 11 to 12 years old, Scotland
As our research has shown, the expansions of young people’s sphere of influence from an early age raises questions around those initial educational pathways. Families can provide potential for positive learning experiences in safe environments (arcades, sweepstakes) which helps them to learn about boundaries, limits, impulses and shared positive values and attitudes around gambling. With more external influence, young people are more vulnerable to external outside influence that may not promote socially responsible messages around gambling. 2CV’s previous research highlighted just how much these early experiences matter as exposure to the extremes of gambling (for example major wins or losses) in childhood leads to an increased interest in gambling in later life - rather than frequent exposure to ‘neutral’ gambling.
In contrast to the more supervised exposure in early childhood described by young people, online gaming facilitates unsupervised exposure to gambling-like activities embedded within video games. Figure 2: ‘The gaming journey’ is an illustrative example of how gaming, gambling experiences and gambling exposure changes over time.
Figure 2: The gaming journey
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4 to 8 years old
Playing games on phones and tablets of family members.
Making family trips to arcades, fairs, and beaches.
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8 to 10 years old
Often receive their first console and/or independent device. Start playing their own choice of games: LittleBigPlanet, Skylanders, LEGO videogames, Mario Kart, Just Dance, Plants vs Zombies.
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8 to 12 years old
Playing games such as Roblox, Minecraft, FIFA, and Among Us, Fall Guys - often with their friends.
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11 to 15 years old
Start playing online with friends more often, new ‘maturer’ games are played, slowly replacing the more childish games: Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Rainbow Six Siege are played alongside FIFA.
May also play individual games on phone for example during journeys and in school.
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14 to 17 years old
Start to play a smaller variety of games, playing a few games with friends online.
Making fewer trips to the arcade with the family, especially with friends.
Other extracurricular activities start to take more of a focus away from gaming - golf, fishing, exercise, music, concerts, socialising with friends.
Together, with the legal gambling activities that young people are engaging in (for example arcades), gaming is often one of the earliest exposures that young people have of experiences that are akin to gambling.
"In Grand Theft Auto I’ve lost nearly 5 million playing with my mates and having fun gambling [in the casino] there. In FIFA I’ve lost like 1 million coins across all the FIFAs due to the same reason [having fun with friends]"
Male, 13 to 14 years old, NW England
The research examined how young people engage in video gaming and game in the online world. It was clear that gaming was mostly conducted during free time outside school, either alone or with friends and was often spontaneous, influenced by the game or a friend’s availability.
The gaming immersion methodology provided a unique window into real-time behaviours, revealing how gambling-like activities in video games, such as loot boxes and skin gambling, could serve as early pathways into gambling. While young people initially failed to recognise these features as gambling-related, further discussion prompted them to draw connections between in-game items and gambling products.
To that extent, awareness and recognition of gambling-like features in gaming, such as loot boxes is highest among those who play FIFA (EAFC), Roblox and Call of Duty and are felt to have become a key part of playing these games.
In summary, this research has revealed the unique way in which playing video games may inadvertently be exposing young people to gambling-style activities which, similar to other forms of exposure, is also subtle and largely unrecognised. Embedded forms of gambling-like activities within video games such as Grand Theft Auto also provide young people with a virtual experience of casino-like environments, bypassing the restrictions of real-world casinos.
While Grand Theft Auto, rated 18 and over, is often accessed by underage players, unlike real casinos that require ID verification, online gaming lacks such checks.
This highlights the blurred boundaries for young people, who are legally restricted from physical gambling spaces yet can easily access similar activities online. Furthermore, given young peoples’ lack of spontaneous awareness of the connection between these activities and the links to gambling activities, it may also be that parents also have limited awareness. While the research did not speak to parents directly, it may be that parents’ attention and focus on risks of video gaming is directed elsewhere - for example, exposure to violent content, screen time, and who their children are playing with online, leaving the presence of gambling-style features largely overlooked. As we have seen in the previous section, unlike their parents, young people have grown up in a digital era (accelerated by COVID-19 (coronavirus)). That can result in a lack of parental awareness or knowledge of how gambling-like-features exist in video games and the potential risks associated with it.
"Gambling is a lot more common in life than I thought. I never really thought that some of the things I do regularly is considered gambling."
Male, 16 to 17 year olds, Scotland
Impact of personal technology and social media Next section
Heightened risks of exposure and potential harm for teenage boys
Last updated: 25 February 2025
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