UKGC chief executive says misuse of gambling stats is “unacceptable”

[The Buzz]

In an open letter posted on the UK Gambling Commission website on Tuesday, Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes said the regulator is “very concerned” at the significant increase in the misuse of gambling statistics and called the use of these statistics to support particular political outcomes "unacceptable."

From the letter:

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.

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.

The 0.3 percent figure typically relates to the Gambling Commission short form PGSI screen, which is a shorter version, as the name suggests, of the longer PGSI screen. Between March 2019 and March 2023, this screen has produced a range of between 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent of the those aged 16 or older in the population experiencing problem gambling.

Read the entire letter here: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.u...ing-statistics

[Pokerface]

Not quite sure the commission is blameless in this also. That's the thing about stats ... they can always be used to support or oppose an argument.