Independent Assessment Endorses Gambling Survey for Great Britain

The development of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) has been endorsed by Professor Patrick Sturgis, London School of Economics, as being “exemplary in all respects”.

The independent review published has assessed the GSGB’s methodological approach against the objectives which were consulted on in 2020 to 2021.

The purpose of the review was to:

• assess the GSGB methodological approach against best practice considering the context of current survey approaches
• analyse the likely impact of the methodological approach on estimates of gambling participation and prevalence of gambling harms
• make recommendations for improvement.

This is an important milestone in the ongoing development of the GSGB, as it moves toward the publication of official statistics from Wave 1 at the end of February.

Professor Patrick Sturgis said: “The Gambling Commission has engaged with a broad range of stakeholders and followed industry standards of best practice in developing a survey design that can be expected to yield high quality and timely estimates of gambling prevalence in Great Britain.

“Following the launch of the GSGB, there are some key recommendations for the Commission to consider to ensure the quality and robustness of the statistics continues to build stakeholder and public confidence.”

Tim Miller, Executive Director of Research and Policy, said: “We are delighted that Professor Sturgis’s report concludes that the Gambling Commission have followed best practice in developing the GSGB survey.

“We are clear that better evidence, driven by better data will lead to better regulation, which in turn will lead to better outcomes. We welcome the recommendations in the report to continue to understand the impact of the changes made to both the survey design and the methodology as we move forward with the launch. We recognise that all methodologies need to continue to evolve and improve over time and this independent report helps to highlight some initial areas of focus once our new approach has gone live.”