Public Health England claims £1.77bn economic burden due to harmful gambling
Report suggests just 0.5% of adult population are problem gamblers and suicide figure thrown into question
Public Health England (PHE) has claimed harmful gambling bears an economic burden of up to £1.77bn, according to its latest research.
The government body has suggested that over the next 12 months, the costs associated with harmful gambling could range from £1.05bn up to £1.77bn.
This new figure outstrips the previous total that was unveiled via various freedom of information (FOI) requests by Regulus Partners’ Dan Waugh, where PHE revealed its expectations stood at £1.27bn.
Shockingly, PHE said that even the upper range £1.77bn figure was “likely to be underestimated due to a lack of available evidence”.
However, questions have been raised over the government’s results given that the economic impact of gambling studies are intrinsically linked to the reported gambling-related suicide figure in the UK.
The estimated figure for suicides associated directly with problem gambling sits at 409 per year.
The UK Gambling Commission has since described this total as “inaccurate”, while also stating that “reliable data does not exist” to support such contentions.
In fact, in PHE’s latest report, it notes that deaths by suicide associated with problem gambling or gambling disorders is estimated to be between 117 and 496 deaths.
This huge discrepancy in the number of deaths resulted in PHE recording the estimated cost of between £241.1m to £961.7m.
Additionally, PHE expects depression linked to problem gambling will bear an economic burden of £508m.
Imprisonment (£167.3m), unemployment benefits (£77m) and statutory homelessness (£49m) were the next three largest cost impacts linked to problem gambling.
Despite these heady figures, PHE estimates just 0.5% of the adult population has a “problem with gambling”, while 3.8% are gambling at “at-risk” levels, and 7% are affected negatively by an other people’s gambling.
However, underpinning PHE’s report was limited evidence, something the body conceded.
PHE said: “We also found that the evidence of harms was limited. We were not able to cost any harms to affected others in the economic analysis. We have detailed the research gaps in each piece of work, but examples of further research needed are:
“Studies that quantify the types and extent of financial harm experienced by people engaging in harmful gambling;
“Longitudinal studies on if or how community, societal and commercial factors can influence harmful gambling;
“Longitudinal quantitative studies that quantify the impact of harmful gambling on affected others, including family members, friends and close associates.”