A Classification of Online Gambling Behaviour in Great Britain

Problem gambling, defined as gambling that is disruptive or damaging to individuals or families that
interferes with daily lives, blights thousands of households in Britain today. The harm that this causes is
socially and geographically uneven in its occurrence and impacts. Covid-19 is having profound impacts,
too, by restricting movements and social interactions, with consequential changes to spatial behaviour and
this has raised concerns about the potential increase in harmful gambling behaviour online.
The proposed project aims to investigate the local factors likely to create differential gambling harm
outcomes across Great Britain. In light of nationwide analysis using survey data held by industry partner,
GambleAware, alongside national ESRC data sources, it will create a new GB-wide geodemographic
indicator that could be updated annually, for understanding the spatial and demographic factors underlying
disparities in gambling risk and vulnerability.
In doing so, the following research questions have been identified:
1. What are the local spatial and demographic factors that underly disparities in gambling risk and
vulnerability?
2. How can new sources of data pertaining to physical gambling facilities, online behaviour and
neighbourhood characteristics be repurposed in order to better understand problem gambling risk and
vulnerability?
3. How can small area estimation procedures be implemented in order to reconcile national surveys with
neighbourhood and other locality data?
4. How can summary measures of problem gambling risk be used in order to devise intervention strategies
based upon a mix of physical facilities and online/telephone support?
Details about the datasets that will be used
The ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) Linked Consumer Registers, updated through the
end of 2020 and comprising circa 141 million records will be used to frame the analysis. Small area
geodemographic data will be sourced from ESRC CDRC and Office for National Statistics (ONS) sources
and will include the Lower level Super Output Area Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD: available for
Research Proposal Shunya Kimura
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2019 for England and Wales, 2020 for Scotland) and the CDRC Access to Healthy Assets and Hazards
(AHAH) Index which, like the IMD, has multiple domains and can be used to differentiate between
neighbourhoods that are as more or less accessible to physical gambling outlets. Various other ESRC data
products held by CDRC document local access to relevant retail facilities, health services and local
environmental amenities. Data on known gambling behaviour will be provided by GambleAware through
the CDRC data service. This will comprise a major ongoing national YouGov survey of which two phases
have been completed to date. The original Phase 1 fieldwork was carried out in September and October
2019 using online interviews conducted with YouGov's online research panel with responses from 12,161
adults. The data that will be provided through CDRC have been weighted to be representative of the GB
adult population according to age, gender, region, socio-economic group and ethnic group. Phase 2
GambleAware data were collected using a targeted online survey of gamblers that self-identified as
experiencing some level of harm plus 'affected others' who felt that they had been affected by the gambling
behaviour of another individual. In total, 3,001 gamblers and affected others were interviewed in October
and November 2019.