Statistics and research release
Measuring the adverse consequences from gambling
This report describes the development and validation of survey questions within the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) to assess adverse consequences from gambling.
Find out more about the Gambling Survey for Great Britain
Summary
Also published recently
Gambling-related harms affect the well-being of individuals, families, and communities. Developing our understanding of gambling-related harms is a key theme in the Gambling Commission’s Evidence gaps and priorities 2023 to 2026.
This report describes the development and validation of survey questions within the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) to assess adverse consequences from gambling.
Key facts
We selected and validated a set of survey items that capture adverse consequences caused by one's own gambling and someone else's gambling.
Survey questions cover the areas of resources, relationships and health and are consistent with Wardle and others (2018) framework of gambling-related harm.
The final set of survey questions differentiate between:
- severe consequences, which are clearly and unequivocally harmful (such as relationship breakdown, experiences of violence, losing significant financial assets, and crime)
- potential adverse consequences, which can vary in severity and often have more cumulative effects (for example, reduced spending on everyday items).
The selected questions demonstrated good reliability and validity. People who experienced each consequence at least ‘occasionally’ had poorer mental wellbeing than those who had ‘never’ experienced each consequence.
Details
The inclusion of questions on the wider impact of gambling follows stakeholder engagement which showed there was widespread demand for the GSGB to include questions on wider harms, alongside the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI).
The development of the new survey questions addresses limitations of relying solely on the PGSI, which does not fully capture the wider social and emotional consequences of gambling.
As a regulator it is our job to ensure that gambling is not harmful to those who engage with it – this new data will give us a far better evidence base on which to do this, with a better understanding of the nuances of people’s experiences.
Full details can be found in the Measuring the adverse consequences from gambling report.
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