2022 Young People and Gambling Report

The results are used by us to better protect this specific group from harm and our approach this year was explained in our update blog last month.

As the industry regulator, we require gambling operators to have strong protections in place to prevent children from accessing products illegally. This also includes rules preventing marketing and advertising being targeted at children.

Historically, understanding the relationship between children and gambling is complex.

In this year’s survey, whilst the headline data around regulated age-restricted products is encouraging, there is clearly a group who still struggle with gambling. We are committed to understanding and acting on these findings in more detail to help us, and a variety of other stakeholders, appreciate if and how young people are playing on regulated and non-regulated products, the challenges, and the wider implications.

This year, 31% of children have stated they had spent their own money on gambling in the last 12 months. The vast majority indicated their gambling was legal or did not feature age restricted products. Examples of this include playing arcade gaming machines, which include penny pusher or claw grab machines (22%), placing a bet for money between friends or family (15%), or playing cards with friends or family for money (5%).

A minority of children stated their gambling was on fruit and slot machines (3%), betting on eSports (2%), National Lottery Scratchcards (1%), playing National Lottery online instant win games (1%), placing a bet through a betting website or app (1%), or playing casino games online (1%).

Overall, the 2022 study shows that 0.9% of 11-16 year-olds are classed as problem gamblers in Great Britain.

Preventing gambling-related harm is at the heart of our work and we have accelerated our drive to make gambling even safer.

Just some of those examples include ramping up our enforcement activity against failing operators, including those who have targeted children, clamping down hard on online slots products, increasing online age and ID verification, strengthening customer interaction requirements, and banning gambling on credit cards.

Read 2022 Young People and Gambling Report