Gambling - Survey published showing participation levels in gambling for England

The Gambling Commission has today issued a press release which refers to the results of a survey into the levels of participation in Gambling in England.

The press release can be found here, which will in turn lead you to the full survey itself. The survey is called the 'Health Survey for England (2012)'.

The Commission states that the "findings on data published today suggest an overall decline in gambling participation and a reduction in the level of problem gambling in the population."

This survey questions in relation to gambling were aimed to be "broadly comparable" to the 2010 British Gambling Prevalence Survey.

The 2010 report showed 73% participation in gambling in the adult population (56% when the National Lottery is excluded) as compared with 65% (43%) in the Health survey 2012.

So far as problem gambling is concerned the 2010 survey shows 0.9 % and 0.7% on the corresponding measures whilst the 2012 Health survey shows these figures have dropped to 0.5% and 0.4% respectively.

A word of caution is that we need to see the next Health survey to ascertain trends on a truly like for like basis but the Gambling Commission intends to publish its own "in depth analysis" next Spring so we shall see what the Commission's conclusions are!