Ygam Reaches 1.2M Young People in a Year
Ygam reached an estimated 1.2 million children and young people over the past year. The figure comes from the UK gambling harm prevention charity's 2025-2026 Impact Report. Since 2020, the organisation says it has reached more than 7 million individuals in total.
Those aren't vague claims. The report puts hard numbers behind Ygam's education and early intervention work. More than 11,000 professionals who work with children and young people were trained in the past year. Roughly 3,700 of them are teachers and youth workers. The rest include health and social care staff, people positioned to spot problems and step in.
Confidence among delegates climbed sharply. Of those surveyed, 92% said they felt more confident identifying and responding to signs of gambling harm in young people. For teachers and youth workers alone, the number hit 95%, with respondents saying the training improved their ability to recognise those signs.
Does it stick? Longer-term data suggests yes. Within 12 months of finishing the training, 67% of surveyed teachers had built gambling-related education into their curriculum. Among health and social care professionals, 69% used what they learned to improve their procedures. For professionals working with children, that figure rose to 75%.
Ygam chief executive officer Emily Tofield said: "Our ongoing commitment to research, evidence and evaluation means we continually assess not only how many people we reach, but what difference our work makes."
The report also flags a gap between what parents want and what children actually get. Some 91% of parents backed lessons on gambling harm in schools. Only 40% said their children had received that education. Among parents who took part in Ygam's programme, 93% said they could better recognise signs of gambling harm.
Ygam's remit has been widening beyond traditional gambling for a while now. Its Gaming and Esports programme, launched in 2025, has already reached more than 50,000 young people with awareness of the risks tied to that kind of digital entertainment. The charity also draws on people with direct experience of gambling harm, through its Lived Experience Advisory Panel and Youth Advisory Panel. "We have brought together the largest and most established community dedicated to preventing gaming and gambling harms among children and young people," Tofield said.
Research is expanding too. Ygam works with more than 20 UK universities on that front. Its Alumni network now counts over 14,000 members, giving educators, youth workers and health professionals a shared route to coordinate their work on protecting young people.