Statistics on gambling participation – 2024

The data is the latest edition of the Gambling Commission’s Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) conducted by NatCen.

A nationally representative sample of 4,657 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed during the period April 2024 to July 2024 and the results are detailed in this report.

• Overall participation in any gambling activity (in the past 4 weeks) was 48 percent, the same proportion that was observed throughout 2023 and in the first wave of 2024.
• One fifth of respondents (20 percent) only took part in lottery draws (either National Lottery or other charity lottery draws) in the past 4 weeks. If we exclude these respondents who have only taken part in lottery draws, gambling participation was 28 percent.
• Overall gambling participation is highest for males aged 45 to 64 years old, however, removing lottery draw only players, shifts the age profile downwards, resulting in males aged 25 to 34 having the highest gambling participation rates.
• The online gambling participation rate (in the past 4 weeks) was 37 percent, which falls to 17 percent when lottery draw only players are removed. This highlights the large proportion of online players that only gamble on lottery draws.
• The in-person gambling participation rate (in the past 4 weeks) was 29 percent. Excluding lottery draw only players, the participation rate was 18 percent.
• The most popular gambling activities (in the past 4 weeks) were lotteries, including National Lottery draws (31 percent) and other charity lottery draws (16 percent). Following lotteries, the next 3 most popular activities were scratchcards (12 percent), betting (12 percent) and online instant win games (7 percent). Compared to the previous period (wave 1, 2024) participation in betting had increased by over 3 percentage points.
• The most popular reasons given as to why respondents gambled was ‘for the chance to win big money’ and ‘because it’s fun’.