UKGC Study: Ethnic Minority Groups Face Higher Gambling Harm Risk
The UK Gambling Commission published research on 27 October that puts a sharper number on something the industry has discussed loosely for years. Gambling harm isn't spread evenly across Great Britain. Three years of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (2023, 2024 and 2025) sit behind the study, which NatCen and University of Glasgow researchers carried out. It compares white, mixed or multiple ethnic, Asian, black and other ethnic groups across habits, risk levels and the consequences players report.
The headline participation figures run one way. The harm figures run the other. White participants were more likely to have gambled in the four weeks before being surveyed, though most of that gap comes down to National Lottery and charity lottery draws. Strip out people who only bought a lottery ticket and the participation difference shrinks considerably. On non-lottery gambling, ethnic minority participants were more engaged. Those from mixed or multiple ethnic backgrounds stood out most.
That group was roughly five times more likely than white participants to have placed an in-person bet on the outcome of an event. Mixed or multiple ethnic and black participants were also more likely to have used at least three different types of gambling within the four-week window. Call it wider product spread, not just higher frequency.
PGSI scores are where the report gets uncomfortable. Every ethnic minority group recorded higher Problem Gambling Severity Index scores than white participants. The share of each population scoring 8 or above, the threshold for problem gambling, ran from 1.9% among white participants to 7.7% among those from mixed or multiple ethnic backgrounds. Recent gamblers from ethnic minority groups were also more likely to report serious consequences: relationship breakdowns, major financial losses, troubles affecting health, finances or personal relationships.
Demographics, socioeconomic circumstances and participation patterns explain some of the gap. They don't explain most of it. Operators should sit with that finding. The researchers also found disparities were wider among people with lower PGSI scores. Among recent gamblers who scored zero, 2.7% of white participants reported at least one other possible adverse outcome. For ethnic minority groups, the equivalent figures ranged from 7.0% to 10.6%. Existing risk measures, in other words, may be missing harm that doesn't show up on the standard screen.
Help-seeking runs ahead of the white population, but it still falls well short of need. Ethnic minority participants were more likely to seek support for gambling. Even so, around three-quarters of all participants scoring 3 or higher on the PGSI had not accessed any form of support, whatever their ethnicity. That treatment gap cuts across every group in the sample.
The Commission says the work feeds its evidence base on how different communities gamble. Its own conclusion points to more research involving people with first-hand experience of gambling-related harm, which it says may help explain the differences and shape better prevention and support. For operators, the practical read is plain: PGSI-based monitoring alone looks insufficient for some customer groups, and the data behind that claim now runs across three survey years.
The full findings sit in the Commission's published evidence base as of 27 October. No consultation deadline or enforcement date attaches to this release. It's a research publication, not a rule change. But it lands in the same period when operators are already expected to justify their customer interaction triggers. The zero-score outcome figures give compliance teams a concrete reason to review how harm is detected among players who don't trip the usual markers.