GambleAware, one of the UK’s biggest problem gambling treatment organisations, has drawn links between society lotteries and prize draws and gambling harm.
Lotteries, while often regarded as a low risk form of gaming compared to sports betting and certainly to casinos, are not out of the firing line in the debate around gambling harm prevalence in the UK.
In the UK, rates of problem gambling are determined based on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), which is itself based on the results of the Gambling Commission‘s Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GBGB).
Participants are asked a saries of questions which determine their PGSI score, and people with a score of eight or more are considered to be affected by problem gambling. According to GambleAware’s 2024 Annual Treatment and Support Survey, 67% of people with a PGSI score of 8+ participated in a prize draw in the past year.
Prize draws have risen in popularity in the UK, particularly those offering houses as a prize – Omaze and Raffle House being the two biggest examples. This has led to calls from society lotteries in particular for these draws to be regulated under UK gambling laws, though the draws themselves have strongly contested this.
GambleAware seems to be of this opinion also. The charity may make calling for more regulation of prize draws one of its last major campaigns, having announced that it will cease operations next year as its commissioning duties are passed onto the NHS.
“Gambling can be highly addictive, with devastating impacts on people’s lives, relationships and financial stability,” said Zoë Osmond OBE, CEO of GambleAware.
“While it is encouraging that more people have sought help, this rise may also point to a growing public health crisis. We are increasingly alarmed by how gambling is being normalised and how frequently people – especially young people – are exposed to gambling across Great Britain.”
Taking further aim at prize draws, GambleAware’s study asserted that 33% of people who gambled – whether suffering from gambling harm or not – had participated in one in the past year, with the most common being McDonalds Monopoly and Omaze.
The charity is also concerned about the number of young people who participate in prize draws. This to a long-standing concern the charity has, shared by other organisations, about the impact gambling harms have on young people.
Its report found that 51% of people aged 18-34 were more likely to have participated in some form of prize draw against just 20% of those aged over 55 and 36% of 35-45 year olds – this could be a result of young people struggling to build up financial savings in today’s difficult economic climate, turning to house prize draws as a result.
Various observers have drawn links between products not classified as gambling and gambling harm over the years. Loot boxes in video games have been a particular target, and it now seems that prize draws are facing the same criticism, but the prize draws remain adamant that their operations contain various protections.
“We take player protection very seriously and believe there is very limited risk of harm from our products,” added James Mieville, Executive Director at Raffle House, speaking to Lottery Daily.
“Our main offering is a luxury house draw every two months and the most frequent of our other prizes is a subscriber-only weekly prize. Therefore, when we monitor player trends, we do not see any cause for concern.
“Indeed, today’s report notes that when it comes to lotteries, draw-based games were perceived by players as lower risk than instant win games due to their delayed gratification and lower cost. We believe the same is true for prize draws.
“This is reflected in the percentages of those who had experienced any level of problems from gambling and also entered prize draws. These were significantly lower for Raffle House than the average.
“We are very supportive of the government’s plans for a voluntary code for the prize draw sector to make sure all operators in this market are taking steps to minimise the risk of consumers experiencing any type of harm from participating in such draws.”