Many people want to change how much and how often they gamble. Banks can help, but one size doesn’t fit all

Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are experiencing harm from gambling. With the 24/7 accessibility of gambling products and the increasingly addictive nature of play, it is no surprise that one in six (16%) people who gamble want to reduce or quit their gambling.

But this figure hides so many varied experiences. While some customers may want to stop gambling altogether, for others, it might be about reducing their spending; or for others, they may still only be beginning to reflect on their relationship with gambling.

For many people who gamble, wanting to change is only the beginning. The harder question is how to turn that intent into sustained behavioural change. As anyone who has tried to eat healthier, stick to a regular exercise regime, or give up smoking can confirm, wanting to change your behaviour and taking the sustained action required to do so are entirely different things. On top of this, the stigma and shame that continues to surround gambling means that people who would like to change their relationship with gambling can struggle to reach out for support to help them make these difficult changes.

Even among customers who want to change their gambling behaviour, individuals may be at very different stages of readiness to change, meaning their motivation, commitment, preparedness, and ability to take action. 

Over the last two years, firm members of the Gambling Harms Action Lab have worked hard to develop new and improved strategies to engage and to support customers at risk of gambling harms. When firms design their gambling harms engagement strategies, they should consider the full spectrum of a customer’s readiness to change in order to meaningfully support people who want to change their gambling. 

Whilst the current approach of providing customers the option of a Bank Gambling Block is an important first step, it assumes a binary relationship with gambling – either you want to quit completely, or you don’t – which ignores the complex reality that many people experience in their relationship with gambling.

By designing interventions with an understanding of a customer’s readiness to change in mind, firms can aim to meet customers where they are and empower them to make decisions that help move them toward their goals. A one-size-fits-all approach risks offering support that feels irrelevant or poorly-timed, therefore reducing the likelihood that a customer will engage.

Fortunately, firms don’t need to start from scratch to understand their customers’ readiness to change. Behaviour change theory offers useful frameworks for understanding the different stages people move through when trying to change a behaviour. 

One such framework is the transtheoretical model, which describes behaviour change as a dynamic and non-linear process. It identifies five stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. People can move between these stages at different speeds, stay in one stage for a long time, and move backwards as well as forwards. 

For firms designing gambling harms engagement strategies, this model’s value isn’t in figuring out which stage an individual is in. Instead, it offers a useful way to think about how different interventions might land with customers at different points in their journey.

For example, a customer who is just beginning to notice the ways in which their gambling is causing harm is unlikely to need the same intervention as someone who has already decided that they want to stop gambling and is looking for a tool to help them do so. This is why it’s crucial that firms offer customers a range of support tools, rather than simply offering a Bank Gambling Block and stopping there. Whilst this abstinence-based tool might be effective for someone who is ready to stop gambling completely, there will be many people for whom accessible, stigma-free information that helps them reflect on their gambling is much more effective for where they are at in their journey, and others where more tailored notifications of the amount of their gambling spend are more useful too.

Thinking about behaviour change in this way can help firms move away from asking “what intervention should we offer customers?” and towards asking “what range of support could help customers at different points in their journey?”

This isn’t to say firms need a different strategy for every customer. Rather, it means building a range of engagement opportunities, so support is available whether a customer is just beginning to consider change, preparing to act, or already taking steps to change their gambling. 

For customers who are not yet ready to act, this could mean ensuring information about gambling harms and available support is consistently visible and easy to access. 

For customers considering change, firms could provide clear, neutral information that helps them make informed decisions about their gambling without pressuring them to change.

For customers ready to act, the focus could shift to reducing the friction between intention and action by making support tools simple to understand and easy to activate.

For customers who have initiated change, for example by engaging with a gambling support tool, firms should use this as an opportunity to offer timely, proactive support and facilitate access to specialist help.

Crucially, this approach isn’t about trying to categorise customers according to their readiness to change. Customers’ motivations and circumstances can change over time, and people can move backwards as well as forwards in their attempts to change their gambling. Instead, firms should ensure their engagement strategies offer different support options, allowing customers to engage with what is most useful to them at any given time. 

Moving beyond a one-size-fits-all approach means recognising that people change at different times and towards different goals. By offering a range of support and making it accessible when customers are ready to engage, firms can support customers who wish to take steps towards changing the way that they gamble.