UK Gambling Commission Issues GSGB Trends Report Comparing 2023 and 2025 Survey Data

The UK Gambling Commission published its latest trends report drawn from the Gambling Survey for Great Britain in July 2026, and this document sets out direct comparisons between the 2023 and 2025 survey waves on participation rates, player experiences, stated reasons for gambling, and reported consequences. Observers note that the release updates official statistics on gambling behaviour across England, Scotland and Wales while maintaining consistent methodology across both years so that changes over time remain measurable.

Participation Patterns Across the Two Waves

Data from the two surveys reveal shifts in how many adults in Great Britain report having gambled in the past four weeks, and researchers break these figures down by product type including lotteries, sports betting, casino games and online slots. The 2025 wave shows modest changes in overall participation compared with 2023, while certain online activities registered larger movements than land-based options. Experts who examined the tables point out that age and gender splits remain broadly stable, yet the proportion of respondents who gambled exclusively online rose slightly between the two periods.

Experiences Reported by Survey Respondents

Questions on player experiences cover topics such as time spent gambling, frequency of play and interactions with operator tools including deposit limits and reality checks. Figures indicate that a higher share of 2025 respondents recalled seeing safer gambling messages than in 2023, while the percentage who reported having set financial limits stayed similar across both surveys. Those who analysed the open-text responses observed that descriptions of gambling sessions remained consistent in length and tone, suggesting that the way people describe their sessions has not altered dramatically in two years.

Reasons Given for Gambling

The surveys asked participants to select from a list of motivations including fun, the chance to win money, social reasons and boredom relief. Results show that the ranking of these motivations stayed largely unchanged between 2023 and 2025, with winning money and entertainment continuing to top the list for most demographic groups. Researchers note that the proportion selecting “to make money” as a primary reason held steady, whereas mentions of social aspects increased marginally in the later wave, particularly among younger adults.

Consequences and Harms Captured in Responses

Both waves included questions on negative outcomes such as spending more than intended, experiencing relationship strain or reporting feelings of regret after gambling sessions. The 2025 data indicate small reductions in some self-reported harm indicators when compared with 2023, although the overall prevalence of any negative consequence remained within a narrow band. Analysts who reviewed the cross-tabulations highlight that respondents who gambled online more frequently tended to report a wider range of consequences than those who used only land-based products, a pattern that persisted across the two survey years.

Methodology and Sample Details

The Gambling Survey for Great Britain employs a large probability-based sample drawn from the general population, and the Commission applied the same weighting procedures in both 2023 and 2025 to allow direct comparison. Response rates and demographic representation stayed consistent enough for trend analysis, according to the technical notes released alongside the main report. The Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) Trends report 2023 to 2025 includes full questionnaires, confidence intervals and significance testing so that users can assess which changes reach statistical thresholds.

Access to the Full Dataset

Alongside the published report, the Commission made underlying data tables available for download, enabling further analysis by academics, operators and policy teams. These tables cover every question asked in both waves and include breakdowns by region, age band and gambling activity type. People who work with these datasets often combine them with other official sources to build longer time series or to examine intersections between gambling and variables such as income or employment status.

Conclusion

The 2026 release of the GSGB trends report supplies a clear side-by-side view of how participation, experiences, motivations and consequences evolved between 2023 and 2025, and it does so using a stable survey instrument that supports reliable year-on-year comparison. Stakeholders across regulation, research and industry now have updated official statistics that they can reference when tracking behaviour across Great Britain.