The scale of harm caused by gambling in Great Britain could be eight times higher than thought, according to the largest ever survey of the impact of the industry, piling pressure on ministers to enact promised gambling reforms.
An estimated 2.5% of adults have struggled with “problem gambling”, according to the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB), which questioned almost 10,000 people.
This would equate to 1.3 million problem gamblers, though the report’s authors cautioned there was a risk that the data could be an overestimate.
Previous surveys, which were conducted by phone, had put the figure for problem gambling as low as 0.3%. It was acknowledged at the time that the methodology meant this was likely to be an…
