Three Years of Tracking: Gambling Commission Publishes Fresh GSGB Data on Participation and Harms

The UK Gambling Commission has released its third annual report from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain, and this release marks a milestone because it compiles three full years of consistent statistics spanning 2023 through 2025 on participation, behaviours, attitudes, and harms.

Officials gathered responses from roughly 20,000 adults each year, which positions the effort as one of the largest dedicated gambling studies worldwide, and the scale allows policymakers to examine genuine trends rather than isolated snapshots.

Participation Levels Hold Steady Across the Period

Headline figures show 47 percent of adults in Great Britain placed at least one gamble in the four weeks before being surveyed, while the rate drops to 27 percent when lottery-only players are removed from the calculation. Those numbers remained consistent across the three-year window, which suggests participation has not shifted dramatically despite broader economic and regulatory changes.

Researchers note that the stability holds even when different demographic slices are examined, and the data breaks down further by age groups, regions, and product types so stakeholders can track where activity concentrates most heavily.

Problem Gambling Rates Show Little Movement

Problem gambling prevalence, measured by a PGSI score of 8 or higher, sat at 2.4 percent throughout the three reporting years. The figure stayed flat, which gives regulators a clear baseline they can use when evaluating future interventions or policy adjustments.

Survey designers included the full PGSI instrument along with additional questions on harms, and the resulting dataset lets analysts compare self-reported negative consequences against the core score to build a more complete picture of impact.

Motivations Remain Consistent Year After Year

Winning money emerged as the top driver, cited by 84 percent of respondents, while 69 percent listed fun or entertainment as a primary reason. These percentages held steady across the three annual waves, which indicates core motivations have not evolved markedly during the study period.

Additional questions explored social aspects, escapism, and other factors, and the full dataset reveals how different motivations correlate with specific products and with varying levels of participation intensity.

Survey Design Supports Robust Trend Analysis

Because the same methodology ran for three consecutive years, observers can now compare year-on-year changes with greater confidence than was possible with earlier, less harmonised data collections. The Commission designed the instrument to produce official statistics that meet rigorous quality standards, and the resulting reports feed directly into policy development and harm-reduction planning.

Data users include government departments, local authorities, treatment providers, and industry operators, each of whom can draw on the same underlying figures while applying their own lenses to the numbers.

Release Timing and Next Steps

The report appeared in July 2026, and it arrives at a moment when multiple stakeholders are preparing submissions ahead of the next round of regulatory reviews. The three-year span supplies the first extended baseline against which future waves will be measured, and the Commission has already signalled that the survey will continue on an annual cycle.

Those who work with the figures note that the large sample size reduces margins of error and allows meaningful analysis at the level of individual gambling products and population subgroups.

Conclusion

The third annual Gambling Survey for Great Britain therefore supplies a stable, large-scale evidence base that covers participation, problem gambling prevalence, and stated motivations over three years. Policymakers, researchers, and other interested parties now have access to comparable official statistics they can use to monitor developments and evaluate the effects of any measures introduced in the coming period. The full dataset and accompanying report remain available through the Gambling Commission for further examination and secondary analysis.