The UK Gambling Commission has unveiled a new framework for researching gambling harm among children and young audiences as part of its National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms.
The framework is designed after “Ipsos MORI’s Young Person’s Omnibus survey” to help create survey questions that effectively explore the issue.
The commission said in a press release that the framework splits potential harm into four domains: health, relationships, development and finance. These areas were established through a number of methods, with input from young people, professionals from the gambling industry and those with experience working with younger people.
Once data from the survey has been collected, the commission and its partners will work together to see which questions are most effective for the monitoring of children and young people who are gambling. The regulator will put these questions to 11-16-year-olds on a yearly basis to help establish the level of gambling-related harm in this age group, the release said.
“Gaining a better understanding of the impact of gambling on children and young people is a key priority for the Commission,” said Helen Rhodes, the Gambling Commission’s Program Director for Safer Gambling. “Childhood and adolescence is a key stage of development and any harms experienced at this stage in life can be detrimental to the future development, confidence and potential of young people.
“This newly released framework will provide critical insight into the range of harms that young people in Britain can experience and will help greatly in concentrating the National Strategy’s prevention and education initiatives where they will have the most impact,” she said. “This will take time and the framework will evolve as we move into the next phase of this work. We encourage our partners in delivering the National Strategy, including public health officials and academics to feed back to us as we move into the next phase of work.”
In some other matters, a recent commission survey found that gamblers over 55 is the fastest growing demographic for online gambling in the UK. The survey found that a total of 2.2 million over-55s gamble regularly online, up one million since 2016. Also, one million more use smartphones, tablets and PCs to bet online compared with 2016.
The 83 percent rise is the biggest in any age group, the report said.
Also, GambleAware, the UK’s advocate for problem gamblers, released a report saying that UK betting operations have failed to meet a target of £10m in voluntary donations to the charity.
Data released by GambleAware, showed the industry gave it £9.6m in 2018-19, with some firms ensuring their presence on the list of donors by giving £1 or £5.
Gambling firms are asked to meet a voluntary donation of 0.1 percent of their gambling revenues. However, many UK lawmakers have pushed for a mandatory levy.
