Statistics on gambling participation – Year 1 (2023), wave 2: Official statistics

The data being released this week is the second edition of the Gambling Commission’s Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) conducted by NatCen. A nationally representative sample of 5003 adults aged 18 years and over were interviewed during the period November 2023 to February 2024 and the results are detailed in this report.

Further details on the GSGB methodology can be found in the GSGB Year 1 (2023), wave 2 report and the GSGB technical report .

All surveys have strengths and limitations and we have outlined the strengths and limitations of our approach in the data analysis and reporting section of the technical report .

Key facts

Overall participation in any gambling activity (in the past 4 weeks) was 48 percent, the same proportion that was observed in the previous wave of data (year 1, wave 1).

Over one fifth of respondents (21 percent) only took part in lottery draws (either National Lottery or other charity lottery draws) in the past 4 weeks. If we exclude those respondents who have only taken part in lottery draws, gambling participation was 27 percent.

Overall gambling participation is highest for males aged 35 to 64 years old, however, removing lottery only draw players, shifts the age profile downwards, resulting in males aged 18 to 44 years having the highest gambling participation rates.

The online gambling participation rate (in the past four weeks) was 36 percent and falls to 14 percent when lottery draw only players are removed. This highlights the large proportion of online gamblers that only gamble on lottery draws.

The in-person gambling participation rate (in the past four weeks) was 29 percent. Excluding lottery draw only players, the participation rate was 18 percent.

In total 19 percent of all respondents had participated in both online and in-person gambling activities in the past four weeks.

The most popular gambling activities (in the past 4 weeks) were lotteries including the National Lottery draws (31 percent) and other charity lottery draws (15 percent). Following lotteries, the next 3 most popular activities were scratchcards (13 percent), betting (9 percent) and instant wins (6 percent). This is consistent with data seen in the previous wave (year 1, wave 1).

The most popular reasons given as to why respondents gambled was for the fun and/or enjoyment factor or for monetary reasons.