Summary
- Gambling addiction rates have dropped in the UK
- UKGC report shows intensity in gambling activity in youngsters
- Gamstop confirms over 300k exclusions in first 6 months
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has released a new report that monitors the rate of gambling addiction in the country. The report shows that gambling addiction rates in the UK have continued to drop year-on-year.
The gambling addiction rate for a period of 12 months ending in June 2021 stood at 0.4 percent and further dropped to 0.2 percent in June 2022.
Gambling Activity Increases In Younger Demographic
These results were pulled from a sample that looked at 4,018 adults in the UK and their gambling preferences. The UKGC carries out these surveys using short phone interviews with the questions coming from the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). The survey looks at a number of factors which include percentage between male and female gamblers, gambling addiction rates, gambling demographic percentages and more.
While the drop in gambling addiction numbers is encouraging for the UK gambling regulator, one concern is that gambling activity has increased between the ages of 16-24 as this demographic has shown an increase in gambling addiction rates. The increase is alarming as the percentage has gone from 0.6 percent in June 2021 to 3.6 percent in June 22.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) continue to work on putting together a new regulatory framework that will hold licensed gambling operators to more stringent regulations and offer better protection to UK gamblers. A whitepaper outlining the proposed changes was set to be released in early 2022 but continues to be delayed due to multiple challenges.
Gamstop Confirms Over 300k Exclusions
Gamstop which offers UK players a free service to self-exclude themselves from betting and gaming sites has reported over 300,000 exclusions in the first six months of 2022. Gamstop allows users to self-impose different restrictions on their gambling activities.
The restrictions include putting a cap on the time they spend each day/week, a cap on the amount they can deposit each day/week or impose a complete self-exclusion on all gambling activities. Gamstop has reported a total of 43,500 self-exclusion sign-ups during the first 6 months.
Gamstop says this was a 9 percent increase in total sign-ups when compared year-on-year and the number of sign-ups in the 16-24 year demographic have increased by 5 percent.
