Commission response to OSR review of Gambling Survey for Great Britain

The Gambling Commission has published its full response to the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) following its review of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB).

The response to the OSR review outlines the work already completed and actions planned in response to the OSR’s nine recommendations, including a timeline for delivery. It also reflects on how GSGB statistics are being used by stakeholders nearly 12 months after the first annual report was released.

Writing on its website, the Commission said:

“Reflecting on the 12 months since the first set of official statistics were published from the GSGB, the GSGB hub on the Gambling Commission website has been visited by a total of 5,271 users. We have continued to publish a range of outputs from the statistics including a series of supplementary tables and 2 deep dive reports. The GSGB raw data was published in the UK Data Service in February 2025 and in the first month was downloaded by nearly 50 users. The data has also been included in a number of externally published studies.”

Responding to the assessment of the GSGB by the OSR, the commission outlines:

• the work it has commissioned to address the recommendations in Professor Sturgis’s report

• the current processes for quality assurance of GSGB data and validation. 

• updated guidance on using official statistics from the GSGB to make the information more clear and provide more examples. 

• updated guidance on data comparability which will be updated further once the experimental research in response to the Sturgis recommendations has been completed. 

• the variety of stakeholder and user engagement carried out in relation to the GSGB. This includes a newly created GSGB statistics user group and a feedback form as well as a newly published user engagement strategy

• the presentation of GSGB data in a variety of formats, including our interactive PowerBi dashboard.