New GambleAware Framework Addresses Gambling Harm Inequalities

Gambling charity GambleAware has published a new framework in an attempt to address inequalities in gambling harm.

The framework is designed for commissioners, policymakers, researchers and campaigners to use as a tool. The framework is a call to redefine gambling as a pressing public health issue, and GambleAware wants a system approach that engages with communities with nuanced differences. According to GambleAware, the framework shows how broader experiences and inequalities disproportionately affect people who face marginalisation.

Recommendations

GambleAware’s recommendations include understanding and reducing the stigma attached to harmful gambling as a barrier to equal access, enhancing communication support to address language-based inequality, and committing to co-production and lived experience approaches.

In October, the Gambling Commission announced the percentage of problem gamblers in Great Britain increased slightly to 2.7% for 2024, up from 2.5% for 2023. That number was published as part of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain, which showed 2.7% of respondents scored eight or more on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI); the highest possible score.

GambleAware argues this includes stigmatising language, labelling people as ‘problem gamblers’, illustrating the person as being a problem rather than experiencing a harm. GambleAware wants to shift the language around harmful gambling to focus on dispassionate and descriptive terms.

Leaning on previous research

The framework has been created using evidence and insights from previous research publications and includes recommendations for how inequalities in gambling harm treatment and support can be addressed. These research publications investigated different groups’ experiences of gambling harm, such as children and young people, women, neurodivergent people, LGBTQ+ people, and ethnic minority communities.

It also incorporates research publications that look at: the impact of stigma, racism and structural discrimination; the influence of gambling marketing and advertising and how to improve safer gambling messaging; harm associated with certain gambling products; and evaluations of gambling treatment and support provision.

The three determinants

With this in mind, the framework is broken down into three determinants. The first is the contexts of gambling harms. GambleAware wishes to look at the impact of the built, social, cultural, political and economic environment. These contexts include geography and neighbourhood; social and community context; regulation and policy; and commercial determinants of health.

The second determinant is the drivers of gambling harms. These drivers underlie the shared experience of gambling harm among diverse groups. GambleAware aims to look at the underlying systemic and structural causes of gambling harm, rather than putting it down to individual choice or blame.

These drivers include: lack of awareness and education of gambling harm; experiences of stigma and discrimination; social exclusion and loneliness; and financial challenges, poverty and social disenfranchisement.

The third determinant is barriers to treatment and support. This includes factors that restrict the availability and accessibility of support options to reduce gambling harm, such as: limited awareness of treatment and support; lack of tailored support; and stigma or discrimination in support settings.

‘Inequalities must be addressed’

Anna Hargrave, GambleAware CEO, said: “Gambling harms can affect anyone. However, they are experienced unequally across society, with those already facing inequality and marginalisation bearing a disproportionately high burden. That is why we have produced this framework, to highlight the disparities faced by different communities.

“To reduce gambling harm for those who bear its highest burdens, inequalities must be addressed through a whole system approach which works for all people, no matter what their background or part of the country they live in.”