The Gambling Commission has published a report into the associations between certain products and Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) scores, admitting it needs more comparisons to ensure the "consistency" of findings.
The UK regulator’s report tackles the finding in its Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) Year 1 report that a “substantially high proportion” of people who played casino games in either online or retail settings, online slots and placed bets on other sports events, either online or in person, had PGSI scores of eight or more, indicating potentially problematic gambling behaviour.
The Gambling Commission’s analysis has found that the above products, as well as non-National Lottery online instant wins and scratchcards, are all “significantly” associated with a score of eight or more when “broader” gambling involvement and demographic and socioeconomic status were considered.
The UKGC noted that many of the products associated with a high score are those which are “faster, continuous gambling formats.”
But it added that it is “less clear” what is driving the prevalence of bets on non-sports events and betting on sports/races at in-person events in this category.
“Low prevalence among the population and increased popularity among those experiencing adverse consequences may explain some of these associations,” it said.
The UKGC said it needs to replicate the analysis with future annual GSGB reports so that the findings have “stability” and “consistency.”
“Supplementing Year 1 data with that from future years will also allow analyses to be examined separately for men and women and will allow further examination of the association between specific gambling activities and PGSI scores among those who gamble more regularly (that is those who gambled in the past four weeks).
“Base sizes for Year 1 data did not permit this level of analysis.”
The deep dive report comes as the Gambling Commission released its latest operator data.
Q3 data, from October to December 2024, showed total online gross gambling yield (GGY) of £1.54bn, up 21 per cent year-on-year.
Total bets and/or spins rose eight per cent to a new high of 25.9 billion, while real event betting GGY of £647m was the highest since Q2 2021 and up 38 per cent year-on-year.
The number of bets decreased seven per cent while the number of spins climbed nine per cent to 23.9 billion.
Slots GGY jumped 15 per cent year-on-year to £709m.
The number of online slots sessions lasting longer than an hour rose by six per cent to 10.4 million and the average session length rose by one minute to 18 minutes.
Land-based GGY climbed five per cent to £592m while the total number of bets and spins dropped by four per cent to 3.1 billion.
