The UK Gambling Commission (BGI) recently announced its progress on the Office for Statistics Regulation's (OSR) recommendations for the new version of the Great Britain Gambling Survey (GSGB). The regulatory body is preparing to release its second annual survey report and has made some responses public.
In May this year, the Gambling Commission received a review from the OSR and published a full response last month. The Commission stated that some recommendations have been implemented, but work is still ongoing. One key recommendation is to enhance the involvement of statistical data users. To this end, the Commission held the first GSGB Statistical Data User Group meeting on July 29, attended by over 50 stakeholders. The meeting focused on establishing a user community, clarifying objectives, and collecting feedback, discussing the release plan for the second annual report.
In terms of methodology, on August 14, the London School of Economics and the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) jointly released the results of the GSGB methodological experiment study in response to Professor Sturgis's independent review recommendation in February 2024. The study analyzed the impact of survey method changes on official gambling behavior statistics, including topic salience, social desirability bias, and updating survey content to better align with current online gambling activities. The regulatory body stated that this study would support the update of the GSGB statistical data guidelines.
According to the plan, the second annual report will be based on data collected in 2024 and will be released on October 2, 2025, along with a simultaneous online seminar to welcome the public to learn about the latest survey results. The report will integrate feedback from the statistical user group, especially regarding the use of Power BI dashboard data. Additionally, the Commission will release two supplementary reports: one focusing on high-frequency gamblers (at least once a week in the past four weeks) and another focusing on individuals who have experienced negative effects of gambling.
The original 2024 data is expected to be archived at the UK Data Service in early 2026 for further research and analysis.
