\n<\/p>\n
An estimated 1.4 million adults in Britain have a gambling problem, according to landmark figures released days after the chancellor hinted at plans to increase taxes on the \u00a311.5bn betting and gaming industry.<\/p>\n
The Gambling Commission\u2019s annual survey found that 2.7% of adults scored 8 or above on the problem gambling severity index, a widely accepted measure analysing negative consequences of betting.<\/p>\n
In previous years, the watchdog had warned against extrapolating that percentage to the general population. However, in a decision that puts the commission on a collision course with the sector it regulates, it has scrapped this advice after analysis of its methodology by a statistics expert.<\/p>\n
That means the poll of more than 19,000 people can now be used to estimate the total number dealing with a gambling problem nationally \u2013 a figure of 1.4 million, or more than the population of Birmingham.<\/p>\n
Data published by the commission also showed higher rates of problem gambling in deprived areas and in some types of gambling such as slot machines and, for the first time, in-play betting on sports.<\/p>\n
The Gambling Commission\u2019s assessment was published on Thursday, days after the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, indicated she planned to raise taxes on the sector in the autumn budget. She told an event at the Labour conference on Monday that there was a case for bookmakers and online casinos to be \u201cpaying more\u201d.<\/p>\n
Gordon Brown has called for an increase of up to \u00a33bn in duties paid by gambling companies to pay for the lifting of the two-child benefit cap. The former prime minister\u2019s plan echoes calls from thinktanks including the Social Market Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research. Industry sources expect taxes to rise, albeit by a smaller amount than sought by Brown.<\/p>\n
The new estimate of the scale of the problem is likely to feed into the Treasury\u2019s thinking about the economic benefits of an industry that pays billions in taxes and employs thousands of staff. Critics say gambling creates a drag on the economy through punters losing about \u00a311.5bn a year.<\/p>\n
The 2.7% figure comes from the commission\u2019s second gambling survey of Great Britain (GSGB), which is now the regulator\u2019s chosen gold standard. It replaced a previous polling format that produced a much lower 0.4% estimate.<\/p>\n
The Betting & Gaming Council has repeatedly chosen to ignore the GSGB in favour of using the much lower figure from the older survey.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the BGC said: \u201cMore than 22 million adults in Britain enjoy a bet each month and as the Gambling Commission today shows, the vast majority of people do so safely.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur members take player protections incredibly seriously and have voluntarily contributed \u00a3170m to research, education and treatment programmes over the past four years alone to tackle problem gambling \u2013 in stark contrast to the illegal growing black market where 1.5 million Brits staked up to \u00a34.3bn and which actively targets vulnerable customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n It said the difference between its preferred 0.4% figure and the regulator\u2019s 2.7% \u201creflects different methodology\u201d.<\/p>\n Andrew Rhodes, the chief executive of the Gambling Commission, said: \u201cThis year\u2019s findings deepen our understanding of consequences from gambling and provide crucial insight into risk profiles among those who gamble most frequently. We strongly encourage operators to use this evidence to consider the risks within their own customer bases.\u201d<\/p>\n The commission also published a report identifying so-called in-play sports betting \u2013 where customers can place wagers on minor aspects of a game in real time \u2013 as a particular problem.<\/p>\n Researchers at the University of Glasgow found that people who had made an in-play bet at least once a week over the past four weeks were three times more likely to score above 8 on the problem gambling scale.<\/p>\n The only products that scored more highly were high street slot machines. These have aroused increasing concern among politicians in recent months, leading to plans to give local authorities powers to stop new venues hosting them from opening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An estimated 1.4 million adults in Britain have a gambling problem, according to landmark figures released days after the chancellor hinted at plans to increase taxes on the \u00a311.5bn betting and gaming industry. The Gambling Commission\u2019s annual survey found that 2.7% of adults scored 8 or above on the problem gambling severity index, a widely<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[8120,3020,6303,4090,1651,871,188],"class_list":{"0":"post-25950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-1-4m","9":"tag-britons","10":"tag-gambling","11":"tag-landmark","12":"tag-problem","13":"tag-shows","14":"tag-study"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}