Last Updated on August 13, 2026 by Maurya
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has placed the protection of children and young people at the centre of its approach to gambling-related harm, using a dedicated framework designed to understand consequences that cannot always be captured simply by measuring how frequently a young person gambles.
The framework marked an important change in thinking. Rather than looking only at whether a child meets the criteria for “problem gambling”, it considers the wider effects gambling can have on financial circumstances, development, relationships and health. Crucially, it also recognises that children can be harmed by somebody else’s gambling, including gambling by parents, relatives or other people close to them.
That wider approach remains highly relevant. The Gambling Commission’s latest official Young People and Gambling statistics show that 30% of 11- to 17-year-olds surveyed in 2025 had spent their own money on some form of gambling during the previous 12 months, up from 27% in 2024. The Commission said the increase appeared to be largely driven by unregulated gambling rather than increased access to regulated age-restricted products.
What Is the UKGC Gambling Harm Framework for Children?
The framework was developed by Ipsos MORI in collaboration with the Gambling Commission, the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling and GambleAware. Its purpose was to create a clearer way of identifying, organising and ultimately measuring gambling-related harms experienced by children and young people.
The project included an expert workshop involving professionals and researchers, four school-based focus groups with young people aged between 13 and 18, and further work to develop and test survey questions. The researchers deliberately adopted a broad definition because harms experienced during childhood may look very different from those experienced by adults.
This distinction matters. A young person may not lose large amounts of money personally but could still experience serious consequences when gambling contributes to financial pressure within their household. Equally, excessive involvement with gambling or gambling-like activities could potentially affect schoolwork, relationships, emotional wellbeing or attitudes towards money.
The framework therefore looks beyond a narrow question of whether somebody has developed a recognised gambling disorder.
The Four Main Areas of Gambling-Related Harm
At the heart of the UKGC-backed framework are four broad domains: financial harm, developmental harm, relationship harm and health harm.
- Financial Harm
Financial harm is not limited to money personally lost by a young gambler.
Children are generally more financially dependent on parents or carers than adults, so gambling losses elsewhere in the household can affect their living standards even when they have never placed a bet themselves.
The framework identifies areas including:
- family living standards;
- attitudes towards money;
- concerns or anxiety about money;
- financial instability caused by gambling within the household.
This broader approach is important because gambling-related financial harm can spread beyond the person gambling. The framework explicitly recognises that gambling by parents, family members or others within a young person’s network may create consequences for the child.
- Development and Education
Childhood and adolescence are important periods for educational, emotional and social development. The framework therefore considers whether gambling-related problems could interfere with a young person’s future potential as well as their current wellbeing.
Its development domain includes education and social and emotional functioning.
Potential warning signs may include difficulties concentrating, disruption to education, changes in priorities or increasing preoccupation with gambling-related activities.
The framework does not suggest that every young person who encounters gambling will experience these consequences. Instead, its purpose is to give researchers a structure for examining the different ways harm could arise and collecting stronger evidence.
- Relationships and Behaviour
Gambling harm can also affect relationships within families and peer groups.
The framework examines family relationships, friendships, community relationships and behaviour.
For example, gambling-related financial stress within a household can potentially contribute to tension between family members. The 2025 Young People and Gambling survey found that 29% of young people had seen members of their household gamble. Among those young people, 7% said gambling by a family member had resulted in arguments or tension at home.
This demonstrates why measuring only children’s own betting behaviour may provide an incomplete picture of gambling-related harm.
- Physical and Mental Health
The fourth domain focuses on health, covering physical health, mental health and emotional wellbeing.
The framework was intentionally designed to consider harm even where gambling behaviour would not necessarily meet a clinical or problem-gambling threshold. Researchers argued that gambling-related harm can exist across a spectrum and may affect individuals, families and wider communities.
This public-health perspective has become increasingly important within wider UK gambling policy because it shifts attention from responding only after severe problems have developed towards understanding risks earlier.
Latest UK Youth Gambling Statistics Show Why the Issue Still Matters
The latest official Gambling Commission survey provides useful context for understanding the continued importance of protecting young people.
Ipsos surveyed 3,666 pupils aged 11 to 17 across England, Scotland and Wales between January and June 2025.
The results showed:
- 30% had spent their own money on gambling during the previous 12 months;
- the figure was higher among boys, at 34%, compared with 27% among girls;
- 21% had spent their own money on arcade machines such as penny pushers or claw machines;
- 14% had bet for money with friends or family;
- 5% had played cards for money with friends or family.
It is important to interpret these figures carefully. Much of the gambling recorded by the survey involved activities that children can legally access or activities outside conventional regulated gambling, rather than children simply opening accounts with licensed online casinos or bookmakers.
When arcade machines were removed from the regulated-gambling figure, the Commission reported that 6% of young people had spent their own money on regulated forms of gambling during the previous year, a figure that was stable compared with 2024.
How Many Children Experience Problem Gambling?
According to the 2025 survey, 1.2% of 11- to 17-year-olds were classified as experiencing problem gambling using the youth-adapted DSM-IV-MR-J screening measure.
A further 2.2% were classified as “at risk”.
The 1.2% figure was statistically stable compared with the 1.5% recorded in 2024, according to the Gambling Commission.
This is another reason the wider harm framework matters. A screening tool designed to identify problem gambling answers a different question from a framework designed to understand financial, developmental, relationship and health consequences.
A child can potentially be affected by gambling without being classified as a problem gambler themselves.
Online Advertising Is a Major Area of Exposure
The digital environment has become particularly important when discussing gambling and younger audiences.
In the 2025 Gambling Commission survey, young people were most likely to report encountering gambling adverts or promotions at least weekly through:
- social media – 49%;
- apps – 47%;
- live-streaming or video-sharing services – 46%;
- television – 43%;
- sports events – 40%.
Exposure also differed significantly by gender. Some 58% of boys reported seeing gambling advertising on social media at least weekly compared with 38% of girls. On live-streaming or video-sharing platforms, the figures were 53% and 35% respectively.
Influencers are another emerging consideration. The Commission found that among young people who had encountered gambling-related social-media content, 31% said they had seen an influencer, streamer or creator advertising gambling-related material.
This does not mean exposure automatically causes harmful gambling, but it demonstrates the environment in which modern gambling-prevention policies must operate.
Gaming, Loot Boxes and Gambling-Like Features Create New Challenges
The line between gaming and gambling-like experiences can also be difficult for younger audiences to recognise.
Qualitative research published by the Gambling Commission in 2025 examined how children’s exposure changes as they grow older. Researchers found that younger children commonly encountered arcade-style activities, while teenagers increasingly experienced gambling-like features through video games, social media, sport and eventually betting apps.
The research highlighted loot boxes, skin gambling and casino-style environments within video games as areas where the boundaries between gaming and gambling can become blurred.
Participants did not always spontaneously recognise these mechanics as being connected to gambling. As young people became older and gained greater independence, disposable income and unsupervised internet access, opportunities for exposure also increased.
The Gambling Commission said in November 2025 that its wider evidence programme is continuing to investigate early gambling experiences and “gateway products”, including loot boxes, social gaming and prize draws, to understand whether these experiences can influence future gambling behaviour.
Stronger Age-Verification Measures Have Been Introduced
Protecting children from accessing age-restricted gambling remains one of the core responsibilities of licensed operators.
Online gambling companies must verify a customer’s age and identity before they are permitted to gamble.
The Commission has also strengthened protections in physical gambling premises. Since August 2024, all land-based licensees, including smaller operators, have been required to conduct age-verification test purchasing, while staff procedures should require age checks where a customer appears to be under 25 rather than under 21.
These requirements complement the broader research framework: regulation attempts to reduce children’s access to restricted products, while research attempts to understand the different pathways through which harm can still occur.
Young Adults Are Receiving Additional Protection Too
UK gambling reforms have also acknowledged that vulnerability does not necessarily disappear on somebody’s 18th birthday.
Young adults aged 18 to 24 now receive a lower maximum stake for online slot games.
The Gambling Commission confirms that a £5 maximum online-slot stake for adults aged 25 and over took effect on 9 April 2025, while a £2 maximum for 18- to 24-year-olds came into force on 21 May 2025.
The government said evidence indicated that younger adults could be particularly vulnerable to gambling-related harm, which was one reason for introducing the lower limit.
Although these regulations concern legal-age adults rather than children, they illustrate a broader policy direction towards recognising age and developmental stage when designing gambling safeguards.
Statutory Gambling Levy Supports Research, Prevention and Treatment
The UK’s wider gambling-harm system is also being reshaped through mandatory funding.
The government announced a statutory levy on licensed gambling operators intended to generate approximately £100 million annually for gambling-harm research, prevention and treatment.
Under the announced funding structure, 50% was allocated towards treatment, 30% towards prevention and 20% towards research. The government said the aim was to establish ring-fenced, consistent funding rather than relying on the previous voluntary contribution system.
For children and young people, stronger independent research could be particularly valuable because gambling behaviour is changing alongside technology, social media, gaming and digital payments.
What Does the Framework Mean for Gambling Operators?
One important distinction should be made: the children and young people harm framework is primarily a research and measurement framework, not a standalone set of new licence conditions.
Publishing it did not itself introduce a new stake limit, advertising ban or age-verification rule.
Instead, it was designed to improve understanding of gambling-related harms and help researchers develop better questions and evidence. The Commission said at launch that the framework would evolve as further evidence became available.
For operators, however, its underlying principles reinforce the importance of safeguarding measures already required under the regulated British market.
That means preventing underage access, complying with advertising requirements, implementing effective age controls and recognising that consumer protection should focus on preventing harm rather than simply responding to severe cases after they occur.
What Does It Mean for Parents and Schools?
The research also shows why gambling education should not focus exclusively on traditional bookmakers and casinos.
Modern conversations with young people may need to cover:
- gambling-like mechanics in video games;
- loot boxes and virtual items;
- betting between friends;
- gambling advertising on social media;
- influencer and streamer promotions;
- sports betting;
- the difference between regulated and unregulated gambling;
- realistic expectations about winning and losing;
- financial boundaries and money management.
The Gambling Commission’s qualitative research suggests young people encounter different gambling or gambling-like experiences at different stages of development, meaning education may need to evolve as children become more independent online.
Why the UKGC Framework Still Matters
The lasting value of the framework is its recognition that gambling harm is broader than gambling addiction.
A narrow measurement system might count only young people who meet a particular problem-gambling threshold. A broader public-health framework can also consider the child whose education is disrupted, the teenager anxious about money, or the family experiencing conflict because of another person’s gambling.
That distinction is central to understanding gambling-related harm among children.
Current UKGC research continues to reflect many of the same themes identified in the original framework: the influence of families, the importance of developmental stages, changes in gambling exposure as children grow older and the increasing significance of digital environments.
Final Thoughts
The UK Gambling Commission’s framework for measuring gambling-related harm among children and young people represented an important move towards viewing the issue through a broader public-health lens.
Its four areas — financial harm, development, relationships and health — acknowledge that a child’s experience cannot be assessed purely by counting bets or measuring losses. Gambling can have indirect consequences, and harm may arise from a young person’s own behaviour or from gambling within their family and social network.
The latest evidence shows why that work remains relevant. Thirty percent of surveyed 11- to 17-year-olds spent some of their own money on gambling in 2025, while 1.2% were classified as experiencing problem gambling and 2.2% as at risk. At the same time, social media, apps, video platforms and gaming environments have created increasingly complex routes through which children encounter gambling-related content.
For regulators, researchers, operators, schools and parents, the challenge is therefore not simply keeping children away from age-restricted betting websites. It is understanding the wider environment around gambling, identifying harm earlier and ensuring that protections keep pace with rapidly changing technology and media habits.
The UKGC framework provides a foundation for doing exactly that — measuring not only whether young people gamble, but how gambling can affect their lives today and their future potential.
