Statistics and research release
Investigating the relationship between reasons for gambling and different gambling activities
The Gambling Commission report on Investigating the relationship between reasons for gambling and different gambling activities
Summary
Also published recently
This short report explores the reasons people give for taking part in gambling and how they relate to different gambling activities. It shows how the reasons given for gambling can be grouped into 5 broad themes: enhancement, challenge, coping and escapism, social, and money, and that different themes are associated with different gambling activities.
Key facts
The reasons people give for taking part in gambling activities group together into 5 themes; monetary, social, enhancement (gambling for fun or excitement), coping and or escapism (gambling to alleviate boredom or to help when feeling tense), and challenge (gambling to compete or for the mental challenge).
Monetary reasons are not the main motivation for taking part in most gambling activities.
There are differences between the reasons associated with taking part in gambling activities online and taking part in gambling activities in person.
Online activities tending to be more strongly associated with motives relating to coping and escapism, whereas in person activities tend to be more strongly associated with enhancement and social reasons.
Details
More details can be found in the main report.
Notes
Some errors were identified by NatCen affecting the 2023, 2024 and 2025 GSGB publications. These errors related to the derivation of ‘gambling activity in the past 12 months’ and ‘consequences of gambling’ variables. Corrections have been applied to the data available on the archive. This report has not been updated due to the small impact of these errors on the data. Findings in this report may differ slightly if replicated using the corrected data, however, the overall patterns and conclusions remain consistent.
This publication is primarily for anyone who has an involvement or interest in the gambling industry including government, licensed operators, trade bodies, international regulators, journalists, academic researchers, financial institutions, statisticians, consumers and local authorities.