UKGC Says Gambling Participation Among Adults Dropping
The UK’s Gambling Commission has revealed the latest data from the Gambling Survey of Great Britain (GSGB) for 2024.
Key Facts:
- Gambling Survey of Great Britain (GSGB) for 2024 is being revealed
- Wave-2 datasets have been shown off by the Gambling Commission
- The Wave-1 GSGB datasets were published back in February 2024
- In total, 4,657 adults aged 18 and over took part in the new research
After the first datasets were unveiled by the regulatory body back in February 2024, the latest information has been shown off.
The Gambling Commission’s data was collected by asking more than 4,500 adults in the UK for their gambling participation.
When lottery draws were stripped out from the datasets, adult gambling participation dropped to 28% in the UK.
However, more than half (52%) of males had participated in gambling over the past four weeks.
Lotteries Still Top The Charts
Although betting and casinos are still popular in the UK, the new data shows they continue to lag behind the most popular type of gambling.
A summary of Wave-2 activities from the regulator said: “The most popular gambling activities (in the past four weeks) were lotteries, including National Lottery draws (31%) and other charity lottery draws (16%).”
“Following lotteries, the next three most popular activities were scratchcards (12%), betting (12%), and online instant win games (7%). Compared to the previous period (Wave 1, 2024), participation in betting increased by over three percentage points.”
While many people might not even consider buying a scratchcard or a lottery ticket to be gambling, they come under betting under the terms of the Gambling Commission.
More Males Bet Than Females
Sports betting is seen as a traditionally male activity in the UK and this is backed up by the data revealed by the Gambling Commission.
Its datasets showed that almost a fifth (18.5%) of males had been engaged in betting activities, while the percentage for female respondents sat at just 6.5%.
Neither the Wave-1 and Wave-2 datasets reported by the Gambling Commission include the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) statistics for UK adults.
This is because the PGSI statistics are reported separately and they will next be unveiled in the annual ‘Official Statistics on Gambling Participation’ report from the Gambling Commission.
The National Centre for Social Research collected the data on behalf of the regulator, and people who took part in the study were interviewed between April and July 2024.
