Third Annual Gambling Survey for Great Britain Report Reveals Stable Participation and Problem Gambling Rates

The UK Gambling Commission released its third annual report from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain on 16 July 2026, and this document compiles three full years of official statistics covering 2023 through 2025. Researchers gathered responses from approximately 20,000 adults each year to track participation levels, behaviours, attitudes, and any consequences tied to gambling activities throughout Great Britain. The survey delivers consistent headline figures that show participation holding steady at 47 percent for any form of gambling in the past four weeks during 2025, while problem gambling prevalence measured by a PGSI score of 8 or higher remained fixed at 2.4 percent across the same period.

Survey Design and Data Collection Methods

Data collection spanned multiple waves each year to capture a broad cross-section of the adult population, and the methodology ensured representative sampling that reflects regional differences in England, Scotland, and Wales. Officials designed the questionnaire to cover both online and land-based gambling formats so that patterns in frequency, spend, and product choice could emerge clearly over the three-year window. Because the same core questions repeated annually, direct comparisons between 2023, 2024, and 2025 became possible without adjustments for changing survey instruments.

Participants answered items about gambling in the past four weeks as well as longer recall periods, which allowed analysts to distinguish regular players from occasional ones. Attitudes toward gambling regulation and perceived harms received dedicated sections, while consequence questions probed financial, emotional, and relationship impacts reported by respondents. The resulting dataset therefore supplies both prevalence counts and contextual details that regulators and researchers can use for policy monitoring.

Headline Participation Figures Across Three Years

Participation rates for any gambling activity stayed level at 47 percent in 2025, matching the stability observed in the two preceding years of the survey series. When broken down by product type, lottery draws continued to draw the largest share of participants, followed by scratch cards and then various online betting options. Remote casino games and sports betting showed modest fluctuations year to year, yet these shifts remained within the margin of sampling error and did not alter the overall participation headline.

Demographic breakdowns revealed that men reported slightly higher participation than women in each annual wave, while younger adults aged 18 to 24 tended to favour online slots and casino products over traditional lottery tickets. Regional variations appeared modest, with Scotland posting participation rates within two percentage points of the Great Britain average in all three years. These patterns indicate that broad engagement with gambling products has not undergone dramatic change despite ongoing regulatory adjustments and market developments.

Problem Gambling Prevalence Remains Consistent

The proportion of adults scoring 8 or higher on the Problem Gambling Severity Index held steady at 2.4 percent throughout the three-year period, a figure that aligns with earlier waves of the same survey instrument. Moderate-risk gambling, defined by PGSI scores between 3 and 7, also displayed little movement across the annual releases. Analysts noted that these prevalence rates translate into roughly 1.2 million adults meeting the threshold for problem gambling in any given year, based on current population estimates for Great Britain.

Consequence questions within the survey captured self-reported difficulties such as financial strain, sleep disruption, and relationship tension among those scoring in the higher PGSI bands. Although the overall prevalence number stayed constant, the distribution of reported harms within the problem gambling group shifted slightly toward online gambling formats between 2023 and 2025. Such granular detail helps identify emerging risk areas even when headline prevalence figures remain unchanged.

Attitudes and Behavioural Insights from the Dataset

Attitude items showed that a majority of respondents continued to view gambling as an acceptable leisure activity when undertaken responsibly, yet support for stricter controls on advertising and stake limits grew modestly each year. Behavioural questions revealed that most participants maintained stable gambling frequency across the three survey waves, with only small percentages reporting increases or decreases in monthly spend. Those who gambled online reported higher average session lengths than land-based players, though average monthly expenditure figures did not differ substantially between channels once lottery play was excluded.

Cross-tabulations between attitudes and PGSI scores indicated that individuals scoring in the problem range expressed greater concern about industry practices and regulatory effectiveness. This correlation appeared consistently in each annual dataset and offers one avenue for future research into how perceptions of harm evolve alongside personal experience.

Conclusion

The third annual Gambling Survey for Great Britain report supplies a stable three-year baseline against which future waves can be measured, and the consistent participation and prevalence figures underscore the value of repeated large-scale data collection. Officials have made the full dataset and accompanying methodology documents available through the Gambling Commission website for further analysis by academics and policy teams. Continued monitoring through this survey series will allow any emerging shifts in behaviour or harm to be detected early, supporting evidence-based decisions on regulation and consumer protection across Great Britain.