TOPLINE:

Individuals gambling at least two times a week were nearly 15-fold more likely to be in the low-risk category, nearly 38-fold more likely to be in the moderate-risk category, and 153-fold more likely to be in the high-risk category than to be in the no-risk category for gambling-related harm.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers analysed data from six waves of cross-sectional surveys conducted in England (2015, 2016, and 2018) and Scotland (2015, 2016, and 2017) and included 16,648 adults aged 18 years or older who reported gambling in the past year.
• Gambling frequency was measured using the following six categories indicating the frequency in the past 12 months: at least two times a week, once a week, less than once a week but more than once a month, once a month, every 2-3 months, or once or twice a year (the last one taken as the reference group).
• The risk for gambling-related harm was assessed using the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) score (0-27) categorised as no risk (0), low risk (1-2), moderate risk (3-7), and high risk (≥ 8).
• The analysis employed multinomial logistic regression and other statistical models, controlling for age, sex, level of deprivation, social grade, presence of mental disorder, and frequency of alcohol consumption.
• A hypothetical policy model was applied to a subsample of individuals gambling above lower-risk guideline levels, reducing their gambling frequency to once weekly to predict changes in PGSI category distribution.

TAKEAWAY:

• Individuals gambled at least twice weekly had a statistically higher PGSI score than the reference group (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 3.528; P < .001).
• Compared with the reference group, individuals gambled at least twice weekly were approximately 15-fold more likely to be in the low-risk category (relative risk ratio [RRR], 14.92), approximately 38-fold more likely to be in the moderate-risk category (RRR, 37.85), and 153-fold more likely to be in the high-risk category (RRR, 153.4; P < .001 for all) than to be in the no-risk category.
• Gambling once weekly was associated with more than twice the PGSI score compared with gambling once or twice a year (IRR, 2.297; P = .004).
• A hypothetical policy reducing gambling frequency from at least twice weekly to once weekly moved approximately 10% of the affected population from higher PGSI categories to the no-risk category and shifted the distribution of PGSI scores downwards.

IN PRACTICE:

"These analyses found a significant association between gambling frequency and risk of gambling-related harm, defined using the PGSI. We have demonstrated how these results could be used to predict the impact of policies that result in a change in gambling frequency," the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

This study was led by Esther Moore, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England. It was published online on February 17, 2026, in Addiction.

LIMITATIONS:

The cross-sectional design precluded establishing a causal relationship between frequency and harm. Data relied on self-reports, which may be subject to underreporting of gambling activities. Nearly 15% of the sample were excluded owing to incomplete data, and researchers assumed that these data were missing completely at random, which could have introduced bias if this assumption did not hold. The data were collected between 2015 and 2018 and might not reflect current gambling behaviour. Moreover, this study was limited by the inability to disaggregate gambling frequency by specific gambling type.

DISCLOSURES:

This research was funded by the University of Sheffield and the Wellcome Trust. The authors declared having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.