British Gambling Commission uncovers cause of data discrepancies on bingo participation
Together with the Bingo Association, the regulator conducted a deeper probe into British bingo participation at physical venues.
UK.- The British Gambling Commission has published a report into the coherence and comparability of estimates of bingo participation in the UK. The analysis conducted with the Bingo Association has helped resolve discrepancies in estimates between the Gambling Survey of Great Britain (GSGB) and theindustry’s own data.
The two bodies began working to assess a comparison of the data over a year ago after the Bingo Association questioned why GSGB data on in-person bingo participation didn’t tally with its own. The GSGB from 2024 estimated that 3.3 per cent of UK adults had played bingo at a physical venue in the past four weeks – over three times higher than the Bingo Association’s estimate of just 1 per cent based on bingo club admissions.
The Gambling Commission worked with the Bingo Association to design a new question to add to the survey to get more detail on people’s bingo habits. The question, which included a list of potential bingo venues from traditional bingo clubs to charity events, was added to the subsequent wave of GSGB fieldwork.
With three waves of data now available, findings show a variety of places where people play bingo. Estimates of the number of people playing in traditional bingo clubs turn out to be more closely aligned with the Bingo Association’s own estimates at 1.2 per cent.
The Gambling Commission says it now hopes to do analysis of the demographic profiles of people playing bingo in different venues but needs to build its sample of respondents first
Miles Baron of the Bingo Association said: “The Bingo Association is fortunate that they collect detailed industry data which allowed them to cross-reference and subsequently question findings from the GSGB regarding participation rates for bingo.
“The Bingo Association is grateful for the opportunity to input an additional survey question into the GSGB in an attempt to understand the differences. We now have more clarity on why there are differences, although there are further questions to explore once there is a bigger sample size.”
