2.7% – What the GSGB 2024 Problem Gambling Rate Means

A single number – 2.7% – has reshaped how the UK government, regulators, and health services think about gambling harm. That’s the problem gambling rate among British adults as measured by the Gambling Survey for Great Britain 2024, the most comprehensive prevalence study the country has conducted. In absolute terms, 2.7% of the adult population translates to roughly 1.4 million people meeting the criteria for problem gambling. That’s not at-risk. Not moderate-risk. Problem gambling – the clinical threshold where gambling causes serious harm to the individual’s financial, psychological, or social wellbeing.

I’ve tracked gambling prevalence data across multiple studies and methodologies over the past nine years, and the GSGB figure is higher than most previous estimates. Understanding why – what the survey measures, how it differs from earlier approaches, and what the number means in the context of offshore gambling – matters more than the headline alone.

How the Gambling Survey for Great Britain Measures Problem Play

The GSGB replaced the previous approach of embedding gambling questions within broader health surveys – a method that produced estimates of around 0.5-0.7% for decades and was widely criticised as underestimating true prevalence. The GSGB is a dedicated gambling survey, designed specifically to capture gambling behaviour and its consequences with greater depth and accuracy.

The survey uses the Problem Gambling Severity Index – a nine-item screening tool that scores respondents from 0 to 27 based on the frequency and impact of specific gambling behaviours. A score of 8 or above classifies someone as a problem gambler. Scores of 3-7 indicate moderate risk, and 1-2 indicate low risk. The PGSI asks about loss-chasing, borrowing to gamble, guilt, health problems caused by gambling, and the impact on relationships.

What makes the GSGB’s 2.7% figure different from earlier estimates isn’t a sudden increase in problem gambling – it’s a measurement that’s more sensitive to the realities of how people gamble today. The survey captures online gambling behaviour more effectively than its predecessors, reaches populations that previous surveys undersampled, and uses a methodology designed for the current market rather than one inherited from an era when most gambling happened in physical venues.

That said, 2.7% is a population-level average. It includes demographics with much higher rates – the 18% problem gambling rate among students, the 40% surge in GamStop registrations among 16-to-24-year-olds – alongside demographics where gambling is minimal. The average smooths over concentrations of harm that are significantly more intense within specific groups.

Problem Gambling and Access to Non-GamStop Casinos

The relationship between problem gambling and offshore casino access is bidirectional, and I’ve observed both directions in practice.

In one direction, people develop gambling problems at licensed sites and then, either after self-excluding or after finding UKGC restrictions too limiting, migrate to offshore casinos where they can continue without intervention. Roughly one in ten GamStop-registered individuals admit to regularly using offshore casinos. These are people who recognised their problem, took formal action to address it, and then found a way around the barrier they’d chosen to erect. The offshore market didn’t create their problem, but it provides an environment where the problem can continue unchecked.

In the other direction, offshore casinos may contribute to the development of problem gambling in people who might not have reached that threshold under UKGC conditions. No stake caps, no spin delays, no affordability checks, no mandatory reality checks, no GamStop integration – every absent safeguard is a friction point that doesn’t exist. For a player whose gambling is escalating, each of those friction points represents a potential moment of reflection or intervention. Remove them all, and the escalation pathway is smoother and faster.

The Betting and Gaming Council estimates that approximately 1.5 million Britons stake up to 4.3 billion pounds annually on the unregulated market. What proportion of those 1.5 million would meet the PGSI threshold for problem gambling is unknown – no survey has specifically measured problem gambling rates among offshore casino users. But given that the population self-selects for people who are either seeking to avoid restrictions or have been excluded from the licensed market for their own protection, the rate is almost certainly higher than the 2.7% baseline.

There’s a measurement gap here that frustrates me professionally. The GSGB captures gambling behaviour broadly but doesn’t distinguish between activity at licensed and unlicensed operators. We know the overall prevalence rate. We know the offshore market exists at scale. We don’t know the intersection – how many of the 2.7% are gambling exclusively offshore, how many split their activity, and how the absence of UKGC safeguards at offshore sites correlates with the severity of harm experienced. Until that research is conducted, policy decisions about the offshore market rest on informed inference rather than direct measurement.

From Data to Action – Services Available Now

GamCare’s helpline received 105,765 contacts in 2025. In January 2026 alone, the service made 996 treatment referrals – up 48% from the 674 referrals in January 2025. A GamCare spokesperson noted that more people affected by gambling harms are choosing to start treatment, and that the National Gambling Helpline provides a 24/7 route to free, specialist help across Great Britain.

The statutory gambling levy, raising an expected 100 million pounds annually since April 2025, is funding an expansion of NHS gambling treatment capacity, prevention programmes, and academic research. These investments take time to translate into accessible services – building clinical infrastructure, training specialists, establishing referral pathways – but the funding baseline is now secure in a way it never was under the voluntary contribution model.

For anyone whose gambling is at offshore casinos, the same services apply. GamCare, the NHS gambling clinics, and tools like BetBlocker don’t discriminate based on where you play. The 2.7% figure is a measurement of a national problem. The response, increasingly, is a national infrastructure of support – one that exists for you regardless of which side of the GamStop boundary your gambling falls on.