The Gambling Commission is set to adopt a new method for measuring gambling harm, despite noting that sampling issues in the new approach may lead to higher reported prevalence rates

A pilot scheme run in Spring 2022 produced results suggesting that 1.3% of the British population would be classed as problem gamblers, far higher than the 0.4% estimate from Health Survey for England 2018 (HSE 2018). However, the regulator noted that this could be for a number of reasons, unrelated to genuine increases in harm.

As a result, the Commission warned that the new figure “should not be used as an estimate of problem gambling at this stage”.