The Cost of Gambling Harm in England: £1.05bn-£1.77bn a Year Explained

The cost of gambling harm in England is put at £1.05bn to £1.77bn a year by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), in 2021-22 prices. It is still the latest official estimate in 2026, and it is built on health, prison, benefit and housing data. For how many people are affected today, see our problem gambling statistics UK report.

How the cost of gambling harm is estimated

The figures come from the OHID gambling report The economic cost of gambling-related harm in England: evidence update 2023, published in January 2023. It updates a report first published by Public Health England in September 2021, which has since been disestablished; OHID, part of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), carried out the review.

OHID separates two kinds of cost. Direct costs are money the state spends, such as on treatment, benefits, housing and prisons. Intangible costs put a value on lost health and life, using the Treasury Green Book rate of £70,000 per quality-adjusted life year.

The base population comes from the Health Survey for England 2018. It counted about 1.76 million people (1,759,221) gambling at some level of risk, of whom 168,149 were problem gamblers scoring 8 or more on the PGSI.

Later surveys give different pictures, which our report on gambling by region England covers. The HSE 2024 found 5% of adults with a PGSI score of 1 or more, while the Gambling Survey for Great Britain 2025 put PGSI 8+ at 2.4%.

Health costs: depression, alcohol and drugs

Health is by far the largest part of the gambling related harm cost. Total health harms are valued at £754.4m to £1,475.0m a year, which is 72% to 83% of the overall estimate.

Depression is the biggest single health item with a fixed value. Its £114.2m direct part covers NHS treatment, while the £393.8m intangible part values the lost quality of life.

Specialist NHS gambling clinics are not costed as a separate line. The study measures harms that lead to wider health spending, not the budget of treatment services themselves.

Gambling suicide cost

Suicide is the most uncertain item, so OHID gives a range rather than a single figure. Its expert panel estimated 117 to 496 excess deaths by suicide a year linked to problem gambling or gambling disorder in England.

Those deaths mean 5,499 to 21,610 years of life lost. With each suicide valued at about £1.6 million, the gambling suicide cost comes to £241.1m to £961.7m, or 23% to 54% of all estimated costs.

The width of the range explains most of the gap between the £1.05bn and £1.77bn totals. Small changes in the assumed number of deaths move the estimate by hundreds of millions of pounds.

Criminal justice: the cost of prison

Imprisonment is the largest direct cost to the state, at £167.3m a year. OHID estimates that 3,744 people in prison in England are there in connection with problem gambling.

The unit cost used is £41,136 per prisoner, the 2019 figure. Depending on the method, the prison estimate ranges from £161.8m to £341.2m.

Other crime costs, such as police time, courts and the harm to victims of gambling-related theft or fraud, are not included. OHID says this makes the criminal justice figure an underestimate.

Employment, benefits and homelessness

Problem gambling is linked to job loss, and OHID puts the excess cost of unemployment benefits at £77.0m a year. That is based on 22,932 extra benefit claims, with a range of £46.8m to £107.3m.

Statutory homelessness adds £49.0m. The estimate rests on 15,856 excess homelessness applications to councils, each costing about £3,091, with a range of £33.8m to £60.4m.

The study covers adults, except for the drug use estimate for ages 17 to 24. Our article on young people and gambling sets out what is known about under-18s.

Limitations of the OHID gambling report

OHID and its expert panel say the totals are underestimates. Financial losses to gamblers and their families, relationship breakdown and wider crime could not be costed with the evidence available.

The costs are also very uneven. Problem gamblers make up 10% of the population analysed but carry 77% to 86% of the estimated costs, or £4,774 to £9,059 each, against £154 per at-risk gambler.

The prevalence data is from 2018 and the prices are from 2021-22, so the estimate is not a 2026 measurement. Gambling outside the licensed market, including on non-UK casino sites, is not measured separately in the inputs either.

For scale, the 2015-16 estimate by Thorley and others put the cost to government in England at £200m to £570m. Licensed gross gambling yield in Great Britain reached £17,455.7m in 2025-26, as our UK gambling industry statistics show.

The statutory gambling levy response

The government’s main funding response is the statutory gambling levy, which started on 6 April 2025. It replaced voluntary industry contributions and is collected by the Gambling Commission, with the first payments due by 1 October 2025.

The government expects the levy to raise about £90m to £100m a year. It is split 50% to treatment through NHS England and the Scottish and Welsh Governments, 30% to prevention led by OHID, and 20% to research through UK Research and Innovation.

The treatment share now funds services that include NHS gambling clinics, and DHSC sits on the central government Levy Board. Only Gambling Commission licence holders pay, so European online casinos licensed elsewhere add nothing to the fund.

Against a cost of over £1bn a year, the levy is a fraction of the estimated harm. The same gap applies to crypto casinos, which sit outside both the levy and the GB licensing system.

FAQ: the cost of gambling harm

Short answers based on the OHID 2023 evidence update and GOV.UK levy documents.