No Increase in UK Problem Gambling

Problem gambling in the United Kingdom has not grown over the past eight years despite the introduction of popular online gambling, according to the Gambling Prevalence Study released to the media by the UK Gambling Commission.

The results in the long-awaited report will surprise many. Despite the influx of thousands of online casinos, online poker rooms and online sports books, problem gambling in the UK remains fixed at very low levels. The government study showed that only about 1 in 200 adults had a gambling problem (0.6% of the 9003 respondents), equating to around 250,000 people in Britain. But this figure has remained unchanged from the last extensive study conducted in 1999. The study was designed to be representative of Britain's adult population of 32 million.

The Gambling Prevalence Study showed that buying a lottery ticket was the most popular form of gambling, accounting for 57% of those questioned. Scratch cards were the next most popular, with 20%. Betting on horse races accounted for 17%.

Gambling Commission chairman Peter Dean told the BBC he was surprised and relieved that while there were still 250,000 "problem gamblers" in Britain, 99% of adults who gambled did so harmlessly: "There have been more forms of gambling available in the intervening years - fixed odds betting terminals in betting shops, online gambling and so forth and the overall figures for online gambling are not up. There are a significant number of people who do gamble online, we've been tracking those, but as I say the overall result is there is no increase at all in problem gambling since the last survey.

The UK government commissioned the report as a benchmark to measure the effects of the Gambling Act 2005, which brought casinos, bookmakers and online gambling under the same regulatory body on September 1.

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