Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

In an extraordinary open letter – Andrew Rhodes, CEO of The Gambling Commission has accused industry stakeholders of misusing statistics on problem gambling.

He wrote this week, “The Commission has seen misuse of statistics from gambling operators, trade bodies, charities, media outlets, sporting venue owners and others. The Commission has even received (or has been copied into) complaints about the misuse of statistics by another party, where the complainant themselves has misused statistics in order to press their complaint. Others have sought to rely on data which the authors have said is not reliable enough to draw those conclusions.

This is unacceptable. All parties seeking to rely on statistics to advance their arguments must do so accurately and in the correct context.

Where Official Statistics have been used inaccurately, the Commission will generally assume the misuse was accidental and ask the party to correct the record. If the party fails to do so, or declines, then we will consider referring the matter to the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)(opens in new tab). Something we have done recently. The Commission also reserves the right to publicly challenge the misuse of statistics by any party, if they fail to correct their misstatement.

The most common misuse of statistics in recent months has been regarding the rate of problem gambling in Great Britain, and the conflation of problem gambling and gambling-related harm.

Problem gambling and gambling-related harm are two separate, but linked, experiences.

The term ‘Problem gambling’ means gambling to a degree that compromises, disrupts or damages family, personal or recreational pursuits. It can be measured by a number of screening tools; the Commission predominantly uses the PGSI (Problem Gambling Severity Index).

When we talk about gambling-related harms, we are talking about the adverse impacts from gambling on the health and wellbeing of individuals, families, communities and society. These harms impact on people’s resources, relationships and health. Harms can be experienced not just by gamblers themselves. There is no single, recognised measure of gambling-related harms, however the Commission has been developing new survey questions that will give us a far better understanding of this issue. These will be included in the forthcoming Gambling Survey for Great Britain, alongside the PGSI.

Multiple individuals and organisations have misused problem gambling statistics to create an inaccurate picture. For example, it has been stated that '99.7 percent of people who gamble do so without being harmed’ and variations on this theme such as arguing that ‘only 0.3 percent of gamblers are harmed’. This is not true and misrepresents the statistics.”

Click here to read a full copy of the letter

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16 August 2023

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