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NHS England has published its annual health survey estimates which track gambling-related harm among adults at a rate of 5%. Rates for problem gambling remain at just under 1 % with researchers observing no significant change in the overall prevalence of gambling and associated risks. Yet the figures tell a broader story about the challenges facing the NHS as it works to coordinate a new system focused on prevention and treatment of gambling harms. Welcome to iGaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove, the creator of positionless marketing and number one player engagement solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. Learn how OptiMove positionless marketing is changing how iGaming teams operate. Discover how operators are using OptiMove's positionless marketing platform to launch personalized CRM campaigns, dynamic league, change casino lobbies and bet slips, and create engaging, gamified experiences. Learn more at OptiMove.com. To see how this approach comes to life, OptiMove Connect returns to London on March 11th and 12th, 2026. It is the only user conference where marketers from around the world share real-world results of positionless marketing driving, efficiency and ROI. Register at connect.optimove.com. I'm Fernando Nott, Media Manager for SVC and your host for today in another episode of Talking Time with Ted and Ted. Ted and Clay. Editor for SVC News, how are you today? I'm very well, thank you Fernando. Thank you for having me on again. It's a pleasure to have you on with Ted Memmert, Editor-at-Large for SVC. Ted, how are you today? Good Fernando, I am just making sure that my notifications are off and that I can give you all my focus. Yeah, we want to make sure that everything is set right on the technical side because we don't want to upset... our producer, E.M. McDonald, who will most likely kill us if any notifications go off during the recording of this episode, where we will be talking about the NHS and their latest annual health survey estimates. So why don't we dive right into it? Of course, it's always interesting to see and to dive into public health data. So what is NHS England observing in relation to problem gambling with this latest report? This is the health survey for England in 2024. It's essentially flagging out that problem gambling is stable and not necessarily escalating. However, you have to kind of look at the lens in which uh the NHS kind of tracks medical disorders and public health in the UK. And it kind of does view kind of problem gambling or at risk problem gambling as it's a persistent and ah It's a persistent threat or a percentage disorder to the population. also it shouldn't kind of be just viewed in terms of a percentage, but much more about how it impacts on local communities. ah It sees that kind of, it wants to kind of point across that. Gamma disorders are a shifting risk and an evolving risk. It cannot just be viewed at a survey level. And while the metrics appear stable, do you think there's something they don't tell the audience about gambling related harms in the country, in England? That's an interesting question. mean, some of the observations, I guess, were quite broad. I want to, know, one of the things I found interesting about it was the, regional breakdown of it. Obviously this is just focusing on England and not on the other three nations of the UK, but There was noticeable changes and disparities between different regions of England with, I believe, Yorkshire and the Humber and the North East in particular seeing higher rates of problem gambling. These are also two of the regions of England where there are higher levels of social deprivation in some of the parts of the country. There's similar issues of other health related topics and social problems. I think it would be interesting to see if this could go, if data like this could dive a bit further and look maybe more individual counties and cities to see if that could be further reinforced and see if there's any disparities there. Well, I'll just go into James, because the only thing I made it clear in the first part of the podcast, we have to look at this from the lens of the NHS and this survey is about health and mental disorders that are witnessed. So we're not just tracking gambling. We're tracking, you know, obesity, mental health issues, chronic pain, smoking, alcohol abuse. This is a very kind of long list. The idea that, look, it's great that the NHS can give you kind of a top line of what it believes that problem gambling is kind of coverage or kind of impact is in the UK, but that has to be kind of compared to other kind of major diseases, right? And also how... the NHS functions as an organisation. It has to look after the wellbeing of every individual, not only those that are suffering kind of the specific needs. It has to deliver treatment at a full population level. And the NHS uses the PGSI to measure harm, but uh how do you think the results and interpretations differ from surveys conducted by the UK Gambling Commission, So again, the Health Service for England is written, this is only for England. you know, does not count Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland. This is fundamentally kind of embedded in the NHS's tracking of national health disorders across England and across Indian regions, right? The way it calculates is via survey of I think 16,000 respondents, right? Their kind of chronic load pains, their kind of responses to their health issues. of their usage of NHS services. And in terms of the PGSI, which has become kind of the standard text for measuring problem gambling, yes, NHS uses it. It's also used by the UK Gamma Commission, but the UK Gamma Commission uses it for a different purpose because it's, you know, its function primarily is specifically for gambling evidence, right? And the evidence of uh gambling harms. within communities, it's much more kind of a regulatory focus and applied to what it believes should be kind of policy purposes to prevent prom and gambling. Yeah. I mean, obviously just to build on what Ted says, if you want to look at the actual data itself, the NHS survey would suggest that There is a lower rate of problem gambling than the UK GC's results would suggest. mean, I'm right in saying that, I? The last data we saw from the UK GC was, believe in October when they published the results of the second year of the gambling survey for Great Britain, which is this annual survey of people who participate in the gambling market. Like Ted said, the purpose of this survey is more to inform policy decisions and regulation. And that put the... problem gambling rate, I believe 2.7 % from what I remember. According to this NHS one, it's 1%. This is, as you said Fernando, both based on the PGSI, which the UKGC has been using since 2016, I think. But yeah, like Ted said, I think this is indicative of differences in approach to carrying out the survey, the modelling of it, maybe different questions asked and the implementation of the data in a different way. although obviously there is a disparity between the two. there is a reason for that. And to our international audiences in the UK, we love our acronyms. It's how we do this. I mean, you're already the UK. it's already like short stuff. Yeah, makes sense. It's from then, from there down, it's like all acronyms. But does the UK need two separate service to assess the problem gambling rates and why should they be interpreted differently? and why and for what purposes? mean, like Ted was saying, think the, obviously the reason they are done differently is because both the gambling commission and the NHS have a different, will have a slightly different motivation of this. The NHS is looking to get a more, broader view of the health and particularly the mental health effects of different things across the UK that like Ted said, that's including gambling, alcohol abuse, tobacco usage. obesity. lot of the mainstream press, the biggest thing they picked up on this was about obesity and health associated with that. The Gamblin Commission is being a lot more specific in looking at how it can uh tailor policies and uh regulations like we talked about earlier. But I do think we could make a case off the back of this that purely just for the sake of public clarity and transparency and getting across a more unified message that perhaps the commission and the NHS could come up with a way to standardize this a bit better. So we have a bit more of a decisive conclusion about what the problem gambling rate is because, know, among Joe public, they might look at this and go, well, how come I'm seeing two different calculations of problem gambling without, em you know, before they have the opportunity to then look into the details behind it and the reasons why. think you've explained well why, you know, we have two surveys. I think, look, the NHS fundamentally has to look at public health in the UK and it has to define what a health burden is and what are the impacts of a health fallout. Whilst the UK GC, and this is why designed the GSGB, the great survey for Great Britain. They need to have, and this is what they say. single eye on gambling providers with participation in the UK. It's two very, very different mandates. with a 5 % at risk rate and around 1 % classified as severe problem gambling, where do you think there can be improvements in treatment and early intervention? Early intervention is a good point. It's quite a An important term I think you've used there, Fernando, if we look at these figures, like say 5 % overall at risk and only 1 % at risk, the big question here around that is to make sure that those people who are currently classified as lower risk, which there is a greater number than the ones who are considered problem gamblers, don't slip into that 1%, do not become that minority. With that, I that's something that's going to require a coherent approach, a unified approach from the both obviously the regulator, increasingly the NHS because it is taking a much more active role than this is the overseer of the research education treatment levy em and the regulated industry itself. But we're also seeing some speeches like the speech from Tim Miller at ICE last week and some other observations that have been made about the role that the companies outside the industry in big tech, in finance. em Miller was specifically talking about meta, how they can be brought into this picture as well. It's a very multifaceted um answer really. me, mean, with early intervention, I mean, now this is going to be in the new strategy of the NHS. oh it's something that, especially kind of treatment intervention that we're going to see how it kind of plays out what the strategy is there. From kind of reading the report, I wish there needs to be kind of I think kind of a deeper intertwining with other, with how gambling harms interact with other disorders in the UK. I think primarily kind of mental health issues, right? There's not kind of a deep enough focus there, but it's, know, it's definitely a service that they are looking to improve on, right? And again, this is very much kind of the NHS' top line presentation of public health in the UK. There's a lot more to discuss to these NHS reports and all that comes after, but right now we're going to take a very quick break, also known as uh VQB, and we will be RB with more IGD. And we are back with more iGaming Daily to continue discussing the health survey estimates released by the NHS England. And of course, this survey has brought a lot of debate to the gambling industry because naturally it includes some part of that impacts on the gaming industry. So do you think the survey provide any indication of the NHS wider strategy on gambling related harm and risk prevention Ted? To an extent, yes. Look, the NHS signals and it's always going to put forward, especially for any disorder that it has to deal with, with the adult population. at a population level and a population health mindset. And I think that it looks at problem gambling and especially gambling risks as what is kind of the preventable factors there. And, you know, again, going back to it really wants to kind of zone in here on intervention and treatment, right? I think that's where it kind of believes that it has to provide the best support, also kind of a localized level working with local communities and stakeholders, right? However, again, it comes to kind of it's changing agenda and changing the structure that I think we're going to talk about as well as we go on and what it's kind of undertaken in 2026. It's a big year for everyone involved. Yeah, if I can just yeah, just really reiterate, I guess what Ted said, I think this is this is the NHS doubling down on what on its preference towards a regional and localised approach. This is something that a lot of policymakers and stakeholders in the treatment space and prevention space. We're calling for a lot last year and making a lot of cases about uh including towards parliament, uh members of a select committee. Yeah, I think this is the energy just looking at how it can take its approach to gambling harm, link that in with its new duty as the overseer of the levy that we talked about earlier, and m incorporate that into more regional public health approaches, um including linking it in with how gambling might connect with other, know, problem gambling, sorry, might connect with other mental health disorders and health issues. I do think as well this is a bit more of an endorsement of the public health approach to gambling that a lot of reform advocates have been calling for for some time now and became particularly vocal in calling for last year. And I think we have actually seen that mentioned in the NHS's summary of this report as well. They say there is some increase in the calling for gambling to be viewed as a public health issue. We've grasped how it's regulated and how policies are formulated around it. speaking of reform and change, the NHS is of course also one of three organizations coordinating a new system for harm treatment. How is this system being developed there? Well, essentially it's been taken kind of into kind of full control by the government and by the government agencies of, okay, the NHS leads. the kind of architecture of this new system, but it's supported by the UK Research Innovation, who are kind of presenting kind of the academic, or let's say kind of the research side and education side of the funding. And they're going to get 20 % of the levy. The other kind of 30%, and I think this is probably the most controversial one, has been pointed out to the OHID, the Office of Health and Illness Disparities. And they're taking kind of 30 % for prevention. The kind of feedback we're getting here is that, especially on the prevention front, Taking it away from uh charities and kind of third parties that have been moving expert here into one office has proved kind of problematic. And we're waiting to kind of seek out a better coordination at that level. uh Again, this is pointing back to 2026 being a fundamental year of how kind of this system is integrated, how it launches. and how it's kind of optimized for the UK population in its access to treatment support for promogamin. And April is a key milestone for the new statutory levy and its funding framework. What changes can the industry expect from that? So, I mean, firstly, the biggest change, well, not the biggest change, a big one that's already underway is the fact that this is going to be a mandatory levy. Companies were already paying into it on a voluntary basis, but that will now be a effectively a duty of licensing, think, to pay into this every year. Payments started being collected last year, I believe. We're going to see the NHS, as we've already said, become the main commissioner of these funds and choose which treatment organizations get them. That will be the biggest change, not necessarily for the industry, for that treatment and charity sector. They're going to be making their case for the projects they're working on, the programs they offer. and the impact they have to the NHS. And a big change just, I guess from a symbolic standpoint is that Gamble Aware is going to shut down in March. that's something that so many people are familiar with the name and the brand of Gamble Aware. It's obviously it's featured on marketing and on TV, online, on shop fronts and so on and has been since, when was it set up? Was it 2002 or a little later than that? No, mean, it's been around for a good, for 20 years now. Yeah. So that's, that's going to be quite a big visual change at the very least as well. Yeah. And it's also kind of what, what is going to replace what Gamblerware has brought in, in, in that framework, that existing framework. Now, one of the things that the, the all kind of three commissioning partners, know, be it the NHS, the OHID or the UKR is that they are, they've promised to publish out a gambling harms coordination plan. And that will actually tell the kind of organizations, know, how, you know, who's in charge of that, the actual framework of processes, right. And how they're going to kind of collect research and evidence, uh which collected from kind of third parties back to be fed into this system. And will the UK gambling industry have a formal coordination role with the NHS and other bodies under the new system? No. Okay. Thank you very much. No, the direction of travel that the health service wanted, wanted a clean break from gambling. So yes, gambling by taxes and by the levy, will fund, you know, oh the framework and the new strategy and the new organizations, but it will have absolutely no role to do uh with any function of uh this levy. ah It's what the NHS, it's what the physicians wanted. And we'll see how that kind of plays out in terms of delivery kind of treatment support services, especially kind of our frontline level. Well, I guess we'll have to hashtag wait and see or should I say W-A-S and we will be paying attention to what happens in the UK not only in April but every day as we are of course subscribed to SBC News newsletter and you should too so make sure you go to SBC News and subscribe to that newsletter and all the other SBC media newsletters also follow iGamingDaily because we will be updating anything needed from uh this story and more in the iGaming industry. Thank you very much Ted and Ted for your time. Thank you very much guys. Thank you very much Nea McDonald for producing this episode. I'm Fernando Nott and to our listeners out there we'll see you in the next one. Goodbye.