The Gap in Gambling Support

For a growing number of young people, gambling does not begin with a trip to a betting shop. It begins on a phone.

Gambling now sits alongside football, social media, video games and group chats. A bet can be placed in seconds, a casino can be carried in a pocket, and gambling promotions appear across many of the same digital spaces in which young people spend the rest of their time.

The numbers show just how early that relationship can begin. In 2025, 30% of 11–17 year olds in Great Britain reported spending their own money on some form of gambling during the previous year, up from 27% in 2024. That means almost one in three young people in this age group had spent their own money gambling in some capacity in the previous year. Within the same survey, 1.2% were classified as experiencing problem gambling and another 2.2% as at risk (Gambling Commission, 2025).

Consequently, a striking disparity between the way gambling has evolved and the way support is delivered has emerged. For a generation surrounded by gambling through phones, social media, gaming and sport, conventional routes into support may feel overly formal or even irrelevant.

Given that pathways into gambling have become increasingly frictionless and immediate, why can’t the same be said for support?

It is difficult for a stubborn young adult to acknowledge they have a problem of equal weight given their comparatively low stakes bets to many attending GA. For them, to take the steps to find a service and arrange an appointment to ask for help from somebody they have never met, might suggest their addiction had reached a point where there was no alternative.  

That is not to say traditional treatment is not important. Cognitive behavioural therapy, counselling, peer support and services such as Gamblers Anonymous can be extremely valuable, particularly once gambling harm has become severe. The evidence certainly does not suggest abandoning them, with 93% of clients who completed treatment through Great Britain’s National Gambling Treatment Service in 2024/25 having recorded an improvement.

However, treatment can only work for the people who engage with it.

And this is where age becomes particularly important.

Research published by GambleAware found that people under 30 were more likely to drop out of treatment than those over 50, at 35% compared with 23% (GambleAware, 2025). Whilst that statistic is telling, it is critical we note the data only captures people who enter the system. We know how many people receive treatment, how many complete it and how many improve. We know far less about the people who never reach out, do not recognise their gambling as a problem, cannot face the stigma of asking for help, or try to stop alone and quietly slip through the cracks.

Traditional treatment is therefore necessarily reactive. It becomes available once somebody acknowledges that their gambling has become serious enough to require help. At which point, losses may have accumulated, relationships may have deteriorated and gambling may already be deeply embedded in their daily life.

This becomes more concerning when we look at when gambling problems develop. Among people receiving treatment in 2024/25, one quarter reported that their problem gambling had begun by the age of 18 (GambleAware, 2025). That figure tells us when problems began for people who eventually reached treatment, but it cannot tell us how many others experienced difficulties with gambling at the same age and never appeared in the data at all. This period in which gambling can begin to take hold while the person experiencing it may be a long way from considering themselves as a problem gambler presents a prevention gap yet to be addressed by traditional practices.

Someone might notice that £10 bets have gradually become £50 bets. They might delete an app and download it again three days later. They might start hiding losses from friends, spending more time gambling alone, or realise that betting has quietly become the most exciting part of their weekend. These are precisely the moments when lower-barrier support could intervene, before the situation reaches crisis point, rather than waiting for somebody to seek traditional treatment after things have already gone badly wrong.

They may want to change without considering themselves an “addict”. They may not relate to the language of recovery at all. That does not mean there is nothing we can offer them.

Perhaps one of the weaknesses in our current approach is the assumption that gambling support begins when somebody is ready to identify themselves as having a gambling problem. There is an enormous space between “my gambling is fine” and “I need professional treatment”, and it is within that space that younger people may be particularly underserved.

For someone at an earlier stage, support might begin with privately assessing their habits, considering what unspent money could fund, finding another evening activity or speaking anonymously with someone who understands. This is not about replacing treatment or suggesting that serious addiction can be solved through better user experience. It is about recognising that a 19-year-old questioning their gambling and someone seeking specialist treatment after years of harm may need different entry points into the same support system. The Gambling Commission’s research highlights why this matters: among 11–17-year-olds who had gambled with their own money, 78% said they did so because it was fun. That may sound obvious, but it reveals a gap. If gambling provides excitement, competition, anticipation, escape or something to do, simply stopping does not replace those experiences. It may protect someone’s money while leaving the boredom, routine or social gap gambling filled.

Support for younger gamblers should therefore do more than prevent gambling; it should help them build alternatives. £50 not gambled could become dinner with friends, while an evening spent betting could become a concert, football match or another activity. Progress can become something a person experiences, not just something they abstain from.

If one quarter of people eventually entering gambling treatment say their problems had already begun by 18, then waiting until someone identifies themselves as needing treatment leaves an obvious question unanswered.

What are we offering them in the years before that?