teenagers - twice as likely to have a gambling problem as adults

More than half of women gamble after a surge over the last decade, MPs are warned
By Daniel Martin

There has been a surge in gambling by women over the past decade, experts have warned MPs.
Excluding those who only enter the National Lottery, the proportion of the female population who gamble has soared by a third to more than half for the first time.

So many women are now problem gamblers that one addiction centre in London is offering child-minding services to encourage mothers to attend.

There have been particularly large rises in the numbers of women buying scratch cards, playing slot machines and betting online.

At the same time the number of ‘grey gamblers’ – over-75s and particularly widowed people – who have taken up betting has increased.

The revelation comes just weeks after the Daily Mail disclosed that teenagers are now twice as likely to have a gambling problem as adults.
A submission by the National Centre for Social Research to the Commons culture select committee, which is investigating the working of Labour’s 2005 Gambling Act, gives details of the changing profile of gamblers over the past decade.

The researchers wrote: ‘We see more women and older people becoming involved with gambling and an increase in the proportion of people who gamble regularly.
‘The latter is particularly important as higher levels of gambling involvement are associated with problem gambling.’

Figures in the British Gambling Prevalence Survey for 2010, quoted by the research team, show that men are still more likely than women to gamble, but that the gap is getting narrower.

In 2010, some 75 per cent of men said they had gambled over the past year, slightly down on the 76 per cent recorded in 1999. However, the proportion of women who gambled went up from 68 to 71 per cent.

If the effect of the National Lottery is taken out, the rise among women is from 41 to 53 per cent – almost a third.

Some 33 per cent of women took part in gambling during the week before they were questioned, the survey found, against 38 per cent of men.

Around 0.3 per cent of women are deemed to be ‘problem gamblers’, up from 0.2 per cent in 1999.

Women aged between 45 and 65 are most likely to be frequent gamblers.
The report also looked at types of gambling. Women are far more likely to play bingo than men.

But while men are less likely to gamble on slot machines than a decade ago, the percentage of women playing them has gone up from 8 to 10 per cent.

Spelling out the soaring numbers of pensioners, widows and widows taking up gambling, the report said: ‘Estimates among those aged 75 and over increased from 52 per cent in 1999 to 63 per cent in 2010.

‘However, for those aged 16-54, estimates in 2010 were largely similar to those observed in 1999.’


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