Gambling Commission Identifies Comprehensive Adjustment to its Surveys

In the wake of the run of recent penalties, the Great Britain Gambling Commission expands its study survey approach to protect consumers from harm.

Expanding the Queries

Survey questions are now querying a greater range of threats, with non-financial ones and harm caused by someone else’s gambling playing a more prominent role.

Other People and Suicide

The line of questioning is now exploring the impact of other people’s gambling habits on players at risk for harmful play, adding to the original pilot closer examination of the issue of suicide--with the understanding that both uncontrolled play and its effects can compound or initiate a greater sense of lost control on the part of the at-risk players.

Original Pilot

The survey was launched in the form of queries tested quarterly on the Commission’s tracker survey before being refined and retested. 

Before the pilot was launched in 2022, the results were reviewed by the NatCen Questionnaire Development and Testing Hub.

Study Model

The Commission originally submitted data to experts at Scotland’s University of Glasgow experts. External specialists Robert Williams and Rachel Volberg were then assigned to a process review and further recommendations for question modification and approach improvement. 

Commission Thoughts

The Commission called the external review and analysis results “robust” while calling the questions “clear and unambiguous,” while seeking to upgrade the study according to more focus on financial harm, and organizing questions regarding harm in ascending order of severity. 

Moving Forward

The Commission will strengthen the terminology of responses to target consumers experiencing harm over those “at risk” for harm.

Of course, as the definition of harm widens, more customers will likely fall into the cohort of experiencing harm, but it remains necessary to enhance the definitions and study parameters in this manner. 

More Upgrades

Another suggestion is to improve the wording in questions through further review from designated study experts.

A key adjustment comes in the “harms to others” question, which the Commission seeks to revise to address under-reporting by consumers of how many people close to them gamble, which is seen to obfuscate the treatment of harm in gambling.

Goal of Study

The Commission described the study goal as “for the harms questions to be asked alongside core questions on participation and problem gambling in 2023 and to become part of our suite of official statistics.”

Outlook

The Commission is integrating gambling harm as a quantifiable process in its study of risks as a key measure to a proactive study approach to protecting consumers.