13 February 2021 | New Scientist | 23G
AMBLING has changed a
lot in recent years. Mobile
apps give people unlimited
access to the global betting market
at the touch of a button from
anywhere in the world. As the
number of gamblers has increased,
so too have bookmakers’ profit
margins and the amount of
problem gambling. Yet we still
can’t say for sure how gambling
and financial troubles are linked.
In the UK, the number of active
online gambling accounts has
risen from around 16 million in
2008 to 30 million in 2019. The
Gambling Commission, an
industry regulator for England,
Scotland and Wales, estimates
that up to 300,000 people may be
problem gamblers – gambling in a
way that is disruptive or damaging
to their lives. A similar pattern has
been seen in other countries.
As a result, there is some
pushback. The Gambling
Commission is reviewing current
legislation and has announced
new restrictions on how online
bookmakers can operate. There
is talk of banning gambling
advertising from sports shirts,
reminiscent of when tobacco
firms faced a similar outlawing.
But there is still much that we
don’t know about the impacts
of gambling.
As interviewing gamblers is
time consuming and costly, much
of the existing research relies on
surveys of the most extreme
gamblers. This is problematic for
several reasons. Extreme gamblers
MIare hard to reach and are likely to
CH
EL
LE
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RB
AN
O
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gambling habits. Another issue is
the assumption that the problems
associated with gambling affect
just a small proportion of the
most extreme gamblers, whereas
gambling researchers believe that
lower levels of gambling may be
harmful too.
Understanding the societal
impact of gambling requires
large-scale, objective data into
the harms of gambling that,
until recently, has been lacking.
In a recent study, we looked at
anonymised data from a UK bank
of around 6.5 million people – of
whom 40 per cent gambled – to seewhat financial, social and health
outcomes disproportionately
affect those who gamble over
a period of seven years (Nature
Human Behaviour, doi.org/ftj6).
While not quite representative
of the UK population, this is the
fullest picture yet of gambling
and its associated harms.
We found that people who
gamble, even if it is with a
relatively small amount of their
monthly budget, experience a
small increase in distressing
financial outcomes, such as falling
behind on their bills and mortgage
or using a payday loan, compared
with those who don’t. This risk riseswith higher rates of gambling.
The relationship between
gambling and harmful life
experiences isn’t purely financial.
By looking at the time of day that
people spend money, we found
that those who gamble are more
likely to be awake in the middle
of the night, a marker associated
with poorer mental health. Over
the seven year period, gamblers
were also more likely to receive
disability payments – measured
by incoming welfare payments –
and to lose their jobs. We also
found that all levels of gambling
are associated with a higher
mortality rate, for men and
women, young and old.
Though none of these
correlations prove causation,
gambling does appear to be closely
linked to negative outcomes in
people’s lives. This suggests that a
public health approach – such as
an advertising ban – could reduce
harm. Targeted approaches, for
instance allowing people to enable
gambling blocks on current
accounts or limiting the amount
that can be gambled, would also
be beneficial to people with higher
levels of gambling. We will only
know if these approaches work
through a large-scale randomised
trial. It is time we found out. ❚Gambling interventions
We now have the fullest picture yet of online gambling’s links to
financial and social harm, say Naomi Muggleton and Neil StewartNaomi Muggleton is at the University
of Oxford and Neil Stewart is at Warwick
Business School, UK