Gambling Survey for Great Britain

This report provides data from the first wave of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) following the completion of the experimental phase. This report outlines the response from the first wave along with information on gambling participation, behaviours and attitudes.

Survey aims

The aims of the GSGB are to: 

• collect data on a wide range of gambling behaviours, including participation and the impact of gambling (both positive and negative), from adults aged 18 years and over
• provide a rolling programme of data collection to give the Gambling Commission the ability to gain timely insights and respond to emerging trends
• produce and publish gambling participation and prevalence statistics as official statistics, in accordance with the standards set out by the Government Statistical Service in the Code of Practice for Statistics. 
  

Findings

• 4,801 individuals completed the questionnaire

• 64 percent (3,069) completed the survey online and 34 percent (1,732) completed a postal questionnaire

• 48% of adults in Great Britain had gambled in the past four weeks (27 per cent when excluding those who only played the National Lottery or other charity lottery draw based games)
• In the past four weeks 38% of adults had gambled online and 29% had gambled in person 

Methodology

The GSGB uses a push-to-web approach, in which people are first encouraged to take part online, completing a web questionnaire. Those who do not initially take part online are subsequently offered an alternative means of participation. In the GSGB this alternative is a paper questionnaire, sent by post. This allows people who are not online or who do not feel willing or able to go online to take part.

Inviting people to take part in the GSGB involved randomly selecting addresses within Great Britain, known as random probability sampling. 

External Researchers: 

Dr Heather Wardle (University of Glasgow)