The UK has consistently and historically been a leading country when it comes to gambling regulation.
Given its long history of gambling traditions, the governing bodies in the UK have had to focus efforts in order to maintain regulations and the commissioning of gambling for many years and continue to do this in the modern, digital age.
Recently, in a significant move made by the UK Gambling Commission, there have been four research suppliers have been appointed to support a Customer Voice framework in order to try and understand consumer behaviour and experience.
This is in a bid to identify ways in which the gambling industry can make things safer, more transparent, and identify patterns in the gamblers of London and the UK.
The researchers
The commission has brought in four different suppliers to delve deeper into UK gambling habits.
Each of the research suppliers has expertise in different sections of the industry.
The framework will be made up of a methodology research firm (Yonder Consulting), a qualitative study firm (HumanKind Research), a market research consultancy (Savanta), and the Behavioural Insights Team UK.
The researchers will look into all aspects of the gambling industry to be as comprehensive as possible.
This means they will cover both land-based casinos and bookies alongside the rapidly evolving iGaming industry of online casinos.
This will include both fiat currency gambling and crypto use.
Crypto casino platforms are likely to need some extra policy implementation of due to their relative newness to the industry, and this will be sure to be a focus of the commission.
The research will hopefully create a regulatory pathway that will focus on consumer welfare, with a focus on responsible gambling.
Each of the researchers will cover the full range of gambling habits in the UK to try and capture the full picture of bettors’ activities, specifically looking at the following:
- Qualitative Research will see the framework conduct in-depth interviews and hold focus groups to explore why consumers gamble in the way that they do.
- Quantitative Research is a chance to explore trends and identify patterns in behaviours.
- Consumer Experience: a chance for the framework to understand the diverse nature of gamblers’ habits and to study what interventions could be tailored appropriately to different groups of gamblers.
- Policy Implementation: delve into an evaluation of how current policies are working and identify new pathways for improvement and future policies that could be of benefit to the industry.
Supporting the Gambling Survey
The consumer voice framework, which has been created by the UK Gambling Commission, is a direct accompaniment to the national Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB).
A recent study from the GSGB was published on the 22 May 2025 and evidenced that there was a 3% decrease in gambling activities across the population between September 2024 and January 2025 compared with the three months prior to this.
Despite its usual comprehensive survey results, the GSGB received less participation than has been used in previous studies, and this has raised questions over the authenticity of their findings.
While the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) made recommendations to improve the GSGB’s work, they advised that there should be no reason why it is not reflective of activity.
Part of the OSR’s recommendations was for the Gambling Commission to offer further research opportunities and more detailed information about the habits of players within the UK gambling industry.
This has seen the commission’s need and desire to create the Customer Voice framework, which should hopefully reinforce their previous evidence and studies.
The creation of this framework alongside the appointment of multiple researchers is indicative of the commission’s views of the complex nature of the consumer’s experience in the industry.
It is clear they see how complex and diverse gamblers’ situations can be.
By consulting all types of gamblers, the commission can reflect policies that are informed by the wide range of experiences and perspectives.
Framework’s intentions and outcomes
The main intention of this framework is to transfer the evidence gathered from the research and use it to directly influence the commission’s further policies.
This will see a focus on areas such as consumer trust, gambling harms, and operator practices.
From the learning evidenced in the research, they will be able to understand the factors that affect these issues and are able to implement policies that aid an improved gambling environment.
While much of this work is about looking at the future and what new policies can be implemented by the commission for the gambling industry, there is also scope to assess current regulations and their effectiveness.
Evaluating this allows for tangible changes to current practice and an opportunity to enhance the industry for Londoners and gamblers across the UK.
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