Questions around accuracy of problem gambling numbers in the UK

With the debate around the acceptability of Fixed Odds Betting Terminals raging this week following the release of the government’s gambling review (see previous reports), broadcaster BBC published an article based on a claim by the Association of British Bookmakers that since the introduction of the machines 15 years ago, problem gambling statistics from the Gambling Commission have shown no upward movement.

The CEO of the trade association, Malcolm George, based his claim on Gambling Commission figures that indicate that the rate of problem gambling across UK gambling has moved from 0.06 percent in 1999 to somewhere between 0.6 and 0.08 percent in 2015.

Anti-gambling activists however claim that the figures are questionable because they are not accurately comparable; the questions on which the numbers were based are similar, but the methodologies used to make the assessment differ.

The 1999 figure is based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) methodology, and the marginally higher percentage recorded in 2015 was arrived at using the same yardstick but a different collection system. The Problem Gambling Severity index was also used.

On the face of it the differences over a 15 year period appear minute, ranging between 0,06 percent and 0,08 percent, but technically that is an increase, activists suggest.

Interestingly, the BBC report also mentions a NatCen study which looked at the lowest levels of problem gambling across the various verticals, finding that a flutter on the National Lottery presented the lowest risk of problem gambling developing at just 1.3 percent.

Conversely, the highest percentages of problem gambling risk were associated with:

Spread betting 20.1 percent
Betting exchanges 16.2 percent
Playing poker in pubs or clubs 15.9 percent
Betting on events with a bookmaker (not online) 15.5 percent
Playing machines in bookmakers (FOBTs) 11.5 percent.

The always voluble, anti-gambling deputy leader of the Labour Party, Tom Watson, claimed in the BBC piece that gambling addiction costs the economy GBP 1.2 billion a year, but the article points out that this figure is arguable and top of the range from an IPPR think tank that estimated the cost at somewhere between GBP 260 million and GBP 1.2 million a year.

That’s a pretty wide spread, and the report from the IPPR casts further doubt with its warning: “Due to limitations in the available data, these findings should not be taken as the excess fiscal cost caused by problem gambling.”

Read the full story here: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41846126