Scottish Health Report Includes Problem Gambling Stats for First Time
Key Takeaways
  • The annual Scottish Health Care Survey has included statistics on gambling for the first time.
  • 74% of men and 67% of women had taken part in gambling activities, but only 8% of men and 4% of women had done so online.
  • Two measurement methods agreed that 0.7% of adults (aged 16 and over) were problem gamblers with rates split by gender—1.4% for men and 0.1% (or 0.2%) for women.
  • The report did not include figures for pathological gambling, “the number of people falling into this category would be too small to allow any detailed analysis to be carried out.”

The annual Scottish Health Care Survey has included statistics on gambling for the first time. 4,815 adults, and 1,787 children took part in the study which estimated that there are over 30,000 problem gamblers in Scotland.