Key points:
- The Gambling Commission has welcomed the Office of Statistics Regulation’s recommendations from its official GSGB review
- A number of new initiatives have already been implemented based on the survey, with more changes soon to be introduced
The UK’s Gambling Commission has acknowledged new findings from the Office for Statistics Regulation’s (OSR) review of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB), stating that it will implement new initiatives based on the survey.
Indeed, the Commission submits a wide range of official gambling statistics from the UK market to the GSGB on an annual basis, with the goal of providing impartial and transparent data pertaining to both the positives and restrictions of the UK’s gambling market. Now, this latest update highlights a recent request from the Commission for the OSR to conduct an independent review of the GSGB against its standards in the Code of Practice for Statistics – with the goal of enhancing its self-evaluative initiatives for improvement.
As such, it has now been revealed by the Gambling Commission that, based on the OSR’s recommendations, it has implemented a new survey improvement plan, alongside new survey questions designed to further authenticate the GSGB findings against external assessment sources (such as Gamstop), as well as initiating separate usability improvements to GSGB outputs.
Further, the Commission has also stated that it plans to introduce comparisons with data from the Health Survey for England and the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey – as well as actioning the publication of a communication strategy to improve how GSGB updates are shared, among other things.
Good to know: Earlier this week, the Gambling Commission provided an update on the second stage of its financial risk assessment pilot
Speaking on this latest development, Ben Haden, Director of Research and Statistics at the Gambling Commission, said: “We welcome the findings from OSR, both the public statement regarding casework they have received in relation to GSGB and their overall review of the GSGB.
“We are pleased they recognise the huge amount of work that the team has put into developing and delivering the largest survey of its kind in the world. We also welcome OSR’s recommendations for further action, which closely align with work that we already have underway.”
