Written by Jon Bryan | Expected reading time 4 minutes
Last Updated: June 8, 2026
Written by Jon Bryan
Jon Bryan, writing for SlotsHawk, looks at recent research questioning the Gambling Commission’s statistical data on gambling participation.
GAMBLING SURVEY FOR GREAT BRITAIN (GSGB)
“The Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) collects our official statistics on gambling behaviour in Great Britain. The GSGB is one of the largest surveys about people’s gambling behaviours in the world, collecting data from 20,000 respondents each year. This information helps us better understand people’s attitudes and gambling behaviours up and down the country, creating a robust source of evidence for gambling in Great Britain.”
This is how the Gambling Commission (GC) introduced the section on its website about the survey to look at gambling that they established a few years ago. Officially launched in 2024, the GC stated that the Gambling Survey for Great Britain was ‘set to become one of the largest in the world’.
The Commission stated it would ‘establish a new baseline for understanding gambling behaviour in Britain’.
Since its launch, the survey has ‘found’ that the level of gambling harm has been underestimated for many years. In July 2024, The Guardian published an article on the new GSGB and made this claim:
“Harm from problem gambling in Great Britain ‘may be eight times higher than thought.”
Headlines like this two years ago made many sit-up and take note. Did we have the wrong information about gambling for all these years? Could the level of problem gambling be even worse than some people had thought? Was the survey from the Commission now getting it right?
The survey data gave those who don’t like gambling another stick with which to beat the gambling industry.
CASTING DOUBT
A recent report questions the survey and is forcing us to re-consider the evidence that it produces. Dan Waugh, Regulus Partners, has obtained information about the actual level of gambling participation. Using data gained directly from the operators, he argues:
“The data reveals substantial over-reporting of gambling participation in the GSGB compared to what is actually happening in the regulated market.”
For those who want gambling information to have a proper basis in reality, this could be a big problem. Could the Gambling Commission be getting it all wrong?
Waugh says that there are only two explanations for this big difference:
“Either the survey sample is skewed or there are massive – and hitherto undetected – black markets for land-based casinos, betting exchanges and the football pools.”
This means that the survey that the Gambling Commission is looking to rely upon for accurate data is now being seen very differently. Waugh’s conclusion is that ‘the GSGB cannot be considered a reliable source of data for measuring gambling behaviours in the regulated market.’
ONLINE OR FACE-TO-FACE
There is an additional area where the GSGB might have an issue with its methodology, which has been written about by Chris Snowdon in The Critic.
He pointed to the obvious problem with the new statistics that were being used by the Gambling Commission:
“They appeared to show that 2.5 per cent of the UK population have a gambling problem whereas every official survey in the last 25 years has found the rate to be around 0.5 per cent.’
Could it really be the case that all the statistics on this issue for the last quarter of a century got it so wrong?
Snowdon indicated one of the flaws, which seems to be generally accepted, he said:
“Online surveys consistently produce higher estimates of gambling harm compared to face-to-face surveys.”
He referenced the GambleAware website to make this point.
PRESENTING THE RESEARCH
Dan Waugh’s critical research was presented at the International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking last month, which this year took place at the Bellagio Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. His arguments and conclusions have been challenged by the Gambling Commission.
For its part, the Commission maintains the integrity of the survey:
“The GSGB is the largest survey of its kind in the world and has been subject to significant external scrutiny by those with recognised expertise in survey design.”
However, it is likely that the criticisms and questions will continue to be levelled at the survey – both the methodology of the GSGB, as well as the conclusions that are derived from the data.
Waugh’s research is helpful in showing many of the deficiencies of the GSGB survey, but it is not the only problem that we have in gambling research and data collection. Leaving that to one side, Waugh’s work in this area deserves to be seen and understood by a wider audience. Let’s hope that, following the presentation of his work at an international conference, it gets the oxygen of publicity that it deserves.
Jon Bryan is a Gambling Writer and recreational Poker Player who writes regularly on his Substack, as well as for SlotsHawk News, which you can find here: Jon’s articles for SlotsHawk.
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