Get ready for a tidal wave of junk science: the misinformation war on gambling is about to get much worse

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The widespread use of misinformation has distorted the public policy debate on the licensed betting market in recent years, with questionable or fake statistics being used to justify a wide range of illiberal reforms, from affordability checks to advertising bans.

Things may, however, be about to get much worse, with a tidal wave of junk science destined to hit betting and racing in the next few years.

This week, the Gambling Commission will publish results from its Gambling Survey for Great Britain 2025. The GSGB surveys 20,000 adults in Britain each year, is one of the largest gambling prevalence surveys in the world and holds the classification of ‘official statistics’. In my view, it is also hopelessly inaccurate.

My research at the University of Liverpool, using hard data on actual bettors, indicates that the commission’s survey systematically overstates rates of participation. For example, its estimate of the number of people who play the football pools is 694 per cent higher than the number of customers on the books of the Football Pools itself.

This matters because the GSGB also produces much higher estimates of problem gambling than indicated by NHS official statistics. These figures are routinely used to justify anti-gambling policies – from higher taxes on betting shops and online bookmakers to affordability checks and blanket bans on advertising.

The Gambling Commission knows that some of its statistics are unreliable but has resisted calls to make transparent disclosures. Instead, it has sought to undermine confidence in NHS statistics (covering a wide range of mental health conditions and not just problem gambling).

It appears that the commission’s unwillingness to do the right thing has made it complicit in attempts by anti-gambling campaigners to disrupt the licensed betting market in Britain, inflicting potentially irreparable damage on horseracing in the process.

The Social Market Foundation, for example, has used the GSGB extensively in making the case for increased taxation of the betting market, while its colleagues at the Coalition To End Gambling Ads have done likewise in lobbying for a complete blackout on wagering advertisements, including at racecourses and within racing media. Both are funded by gambling reform campaigner Derek Webb.

In 2021, Public Health England published a report claiming that problem gambling was associated with £1.3 billion of social and economic costs per year – but this calculation turned out to be faulty and was quietly withdrawn.

Two years later, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research alleged that problem gambling created costs of £1.4bn a year – but it transpired that 60 per cent of this figure was based upon a dataset that contained no information whatsoever about problem gambling (NIESR simply invented its own classifications).

Speaking to some of those involved, one senses that they see the manufacture of statistics as acceptable given the ‘justness’ of their cause. The problem with this – what Plato referred to as the ‘noble lie’ – is that the justification is entirely subjective. 

As bad as things are, they are about to get much worse. This is because the University of Glasgow (the Gambling Commission’s partner on the GSGB) was recently awarded £10 million of public money (collected by the commission via a levy on betting) to set up a Gambling Harms Research Centre.

The idea of having a centralised faculty is a good one, but the choice of Glasgow is controversial because the centre’s head, Professor Heather Wardle, has strongly pronounced views on wagering. As chair of the Lancet Public Health Commission on Gambling, she has called for the “de-normalisation” (or stigmatisation) of betting, “prohibitions or restrictions” on betting and betting sponsorship and for the World Health Assembly to adopt a public health resolution on gambling.

There is widespread concern within the betting industry that the Glasgow centre will become a propaganda machine for prohibition rather than a serious research institute. 

Glasgow University: recently awarded £10m of public money to set up a Gambling Harms Research Centre

In the meantime, UK Research and Innovation has already distributed £1.5m in levy funding for a series of ‘rapid evidence reviews’ on a wide range of matters, including gambling marketing, gambling harms and intersectionality and even menstrual change and gambling. UKRI has advised that any researchers who work with the betting industry will be effectively blacklisted, but no such restrictions are in place for those who take part in anti-gambling activism.

It seems likely that the objective of this activity is to construct the evidence base for a new Gambling Act, and with it the overthrow of the liberal consensus on betting as a legitimate adult pastime. It is an absurdity of the system – as well as an egregious waste of the taxpayer’s money – that public bodies are now sponsoring pressure groups to lobby the British government to this end. 

Last year, the Gambling Commission approved £360,000 in funding to the University of Glasgow, Gambling with Lives and others explicitly for the purposes of lobbying. These awards (known euphemistically as ‘knowledge mobilisation grants’) are provided to “advance opportunities for regulatory measures”. In other words, the commission has funded campaigners to lobby itself on market reform.

At the same time, the regulator has suppressed evidence on widespread bettor opposition to affordability checks (revealed by the Racing Post in 2023), misrepresented research findings and promoted anti-gambling speech codes.

The betting and racing industries ought to be both outraged and concerned at this pattern of behaviour from public bodies but, to date, there has been little in the way of coordinated opposition to this programme of policy-based evidence-making.

There are signs, however, that this is starting to change. Some in Parliament have also taken notice of what is going on – particularly shadow gambling minister Louie French, who was recently moved to describe the market regulator as the ‘anti-gambling commission’ and is understood to be alarmed at the potential misuse of public funds.

It is critical that all who care about the sound regulation of the betting market and the long-term future of racing stand up to those who seek to mislead policy-makers. Until that happens, the political weather for racing and betting will only get worse.

Dan Waugh is a partner with Regulus Partners,  a global strategic advisory business focused on the sports and leisure sectors

Read more . . .

The Gambling Commission has form when it comes to burying inconvenient evidence – it can't be given free rein over affordability checks 

The government and Gambling Commission have created an appalling mess - and that should come as no surprise 

Next generation of legal punters could be lost for good because of 'really dangerous' checks 

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