Online Gambling Addiction Statistics Statistics: Market Data Report 2025

We define these PH goals and strategies in the results of the narrative analysis section that follows below. Firstly, we outline the methodology of the scoping review of previous PH approaches towards alcohol-, tobacco-, HFSS-, and gambling-related harms. Secondly, we evaluate the findings of the review, derived from a narrative analysis of the strategies prevalent within the sample of literature. Thirdly, the strategies and goals which emerged from our scoping review 888sport are developed into a conceptual framework for GRH. This also incorporates a socio-ecological model and a categorization of GRH outcomes by type of harm as well as severity and temporal experience of harm. Finally, we highlight how the framework can be used by a range of stakeholders towards the development of interventions which minimise GRH.

Gambler’s Help (Australia)

This stratification allows the targeting of intervention and treatment at specific parts of the population 9, 17, 29, and the understanding and mapping of the relations between various approaches or outcome goals. Public Health England (PHE) 129 used the socio-ecological model for a gap analysis of gambling risk factors, thus demonstrating the utility of the model as a tool to map research. For gambling specifically, the model shifts the focus from individual treatment approaches and explicitly recognises the harm caused to affected others 91, social groups 76, and at a societal level 9. PH approaches encompass a range of goals and strategies, allowing for an understanding of complexity and nuance of societal health issues whilst retaining synergism. The core PH goals and strategies which emerged from our scoping review form the central interacting strands of a comprehensive conceptual framework for the prevention of GRH.

• According to the Institute of Medicine, prevention is a complementary approach, in which services are offered to the general population or to individuals identified as being at risk for a disorder, to reduce the likelihood of developing the disorder 73.
• Data from our scoping review again found that evidence bases within the other sectors were more developed in relation to support, than within the gambling sector.
• Factors related to physical well-being are poorly investigated, and mainly concern the comparison between online and offline gamblers.
• And then you have all of those who…do not necessarily qualify for the disorder but have some serious consequences, like losing a family or losing even payments for a car.
• We shall also take a brief look at the available interventions and how they apply to university students.

Publication types

The immersive nature of Internet gambling is also clear through reports that online gamblers, particularly those experiencing problems, are more likely to report disruption to their sleep and eating patterns than land-based gamblers 18, 36, 37. Data collected by gambling treatment services suggest that Internet gambling currently makes a small, but growing, contribution to gambling problems among those seeking formal help 37, 40, 41. Surveys have found that online problem gamblers are significantly less likely to have sought formal help as compared to land-based problem gamblers 20, 42, 43. This suggests that problems related to Internet gambling may be underrepresented in treatment-seeking samples and are likely to increase over time as more people participate in this mode and problem severity increases. Aside from the PH goals and strategies highlighted above, our scoping review also uncovered peer-reviewed papers whose approach was conceptual in nature.

Motivations to Gamble

Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to explore how PH approaches to GRH could learn from the tobacco, alcohol and HFSS sectors. We propose a conceptual framework which aligns disparate PH strategies and approaches—and potentially unites sector stakeholders—towards the prevention of gambling-related harms. Moving beyond the frameworks we have explored above, our framework was constructed first of all by carrying out a scoping review of extant PH approaches towards alcohol-, HFSS-, tobacco-, and gambling-related harms. Approaches to crime were also part of the original research focus but were excluded as we are concentrating only on legal products. The global gambling sector has grown significantly over recent years due to liberal deregulation and digital transformation.

We focused on the data extracted under the category of ‘Summary of Findings and Themes of Public Health’. Our narrative analysis grouped PH approaches by coding strategies and interventions according to type, thus developing a broader categorization of strategies which can be applied to reduction or prevention of GRH. We also coded the end goals or aims of strategies, thus resulting in broad PH goals which, when achieved, may result in the prevention or reduction GRH. We (JW and BF) coded strategies and goals separately, but found upon comparison that our respective analyses of goals and strategies returned similar results. After negotiation over the definition and categorization of goals and strategies, we ended with three broad PH goals which could be achieved by three broad PH strategies.