Gambling Commission must take heavy share of responsibility for misreporting of controversial survey figures

It may be telling that the figure leapt upon in reports on the publication of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) did not figure in the main body of the Gambling Commission's press release.

Instead it was in the 'note to editors' postscript at the bottom of the page where the vital new figure of a problem gambling rate of 2.5 per cent was first mentioned.

In the run-up to publication and afterwards the industry regulator has been at pains to point out that the GSGB uses a different methodology to previous surveys and therefore should not be used to compare findings, or indeed to extrapolate a problem gambling figure for the whole population.

If that was the Gambling Commission's hope for the subsequent coverage of the survey then it was a forlorn one.

The commission had also warned that it would deal "robustly" with any misuse of statistics, in which case it is likely to be busy now and for the foreseeable future, although it can do little more than admonish sternly any who ignore its guidelines.

It was inevitable that reporting on the GSGB would not meet the standards set out in the Gambling Commission's guidance and, having released such heavily caveated figures, the regulator must take a heavy share of responsibility for that.

It has also managed to increase the pressure both on itself and ministers to revisit the reforms set in train by the previous government following the gambling white paper published last year.

That pressure will not only include renewed calls for the government to get on with the reforms put on hold when Rishi Sunak called the general election, such as the statutory levy on gambling operators.

It will also mean calls for further action in areas such as gambling advertising, which could have serious consequences for British racing should it not secure a carve out from restrictions, and also possibly for affordability checks to be strengthened. That would have similarly destructive repercussions for the sport.

The Gambling Commission has said that the GSGB will provide a new baseline for understanding gambling behaviour in Britain, against which future changes can be compared.

However, that new baseline will mean there is no reliable way to tell if any of the safer gambling initiatives of recent years have worked, because there will be no official statistics from that period to measure them against.

The Gambling Commission says the GSGB will provide greater insight and clarity but it will also succeed in muddying the waters when it comes to the gambling debate.

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