UK Gambling Commission Publishes Third Annual Report from Gambling Survey for Great Britain

The UK Gambling Commission has released its third annual report from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain, and this document delivers three full years of official statistics spanning 2023 through 2025 on how adults across the country participate in gambling, what their behaviors look like, how they view the activity, and what consequences arise from it.

Data from the survey shows headline participation rates holding steady, with 47 percent of adults reporting that they gambled in the past four weeks during 2025, while the figure drops to 27 percent when lottery-only players get excluded from the count, and problem gambling rates measured by a PGSI score of 8 or higher also remained stable at 2.4 percent across the same period.

Survey Scale and Methodology

Researchers built this dataset through one of the world’s largest dedicated gambling surveys, drawing responses from roughly 20,000 participants each year, and that volume of data allows clear trend analysis that policymakers and regulators can rely on when shaping future rules, while the consistent methodology across three years makes year-over-year comparisons straightforward and reliable.

Officials at the Commission designed the questions to capture both broad participation numbers and finer details about frequency, spending patterns, and attitudes, so the resulting figures paint a comprehensive picture rather than a narrow snapshot, and the stability observers see in the 2025 numbers sits alongside earlier waves from 2023 and 2024 to show little movement in either overall engagement or the proportion of people experiencing problems.

Key Participation Findings

Participation statistics reveal that nearly half of adults still engage with some form of gambling within any given four-week window, yet removing lottery draws from the picture trims that share to just over one quarter, which highlights how much of the headline figure traces back to a single product type, and the unchanged problem gambling rate of 2.4 percent indicates that the share of adults scoring 8 or higher on the Problem Gambling Severity Index has not shifted measurably over the three-year span.

Those who study the data note that the survey also tracks attitudes and perceived consequences, giving regulators insight into public sentiment and any reported harms, while the large annual sample size reduces the margin of error and strengthens confidence in the stability conclusions drawn from the numbers.

Policy and Regulatory Context

The report arrives at a moment when the Commission continues to refine its approach to oversight, and the three-year dataset now available supports evidence-based decisions on licensing conditions, player protection measures, and public health messaging, because consistent statistics over multiple years help separate short-term fluctuations from longer-term patterns.

Regulators have stated that the survey results feed directly into ongoing monitoring of the market, and the absence of significant change in the headline metrics suggests that existing frameworks may be holding participation and harm indicators in a steady state, although further waves will be needed to confirm whether this pattern persists.

Broader Implications for Trend Analysis

Because the Gambling Survey for Great Britain now covers three complete years, analysts can begin to identify whether certain behaviors or attitudes are trending upward, downward, or remaining flat, and the Commission has made the full dataset available for external researchers who want to conduct deeper dives into specific demographics or product types, while the official statistics publication includes breakdowns that separate lottery play from other forms of gambling to give a clearer view of non-lottery engagement.

Figures from the 2025 wave align closely with those published in prior annual reports, which reinforces the picture of stability that the Commission highlights in its news release, and the survey’s scale means even small subgroups within the population yield usable sample sizes for targeted analysis.

Conclusion

The third annual Gambling Survey for Great Britain report therefore stands as a key reference point for anyone tracking how gambling participation, behaviors, attitudes, and consequences have evolved across Great Britain from 2023 to 2025, and the stable rates documented in the latest release provide a baseline against which future waves can be measured. Observers note that continued data collection will show whether the patterns observed so far hold steady or begin to shift, and the Commission’s commitment to publishing these official statistics each year ensures that policymakers, researchers, and the public maintain access to consistent, high-quality information on the topic. Data from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain Annual Report 2025 remains freely accessible for those who want to examine the numbers in greater detail.