Recap: bringing financial services together to explore opportunities to identify and support customers at risk of gambling harms

Last month, the Gambling Harms Action Lab team delivered a first for the programme: a workshop with our seven member firms to discuss how transaction data analysis can better support customers at risk of, or experiencing, gambling harm. 

Banks have a unique lens through which they can often see customer data where someone may be experiencing gambling harm. Our workshop sought to bring this topic to light and explore how firms can deliver effective transaction data analysis that is combined with proactive communications to ensure customers receive the support they need at the right time.

The session began by setting out the scale of the challenge. The 2025 Gambling Survey for Great Britain found that 1.4 million people (2.7%) were experiencing problem gambling. The same survey found that a further 11.9% (6.5 million) of the adult population were at risk of experiencing problem gambling, meaning they were possibly experiencing some adverse consequences to their mental wellbeing, social relationships or their financial circumstances due to gambling. 

Despite these stark figures, only one in seven of those experiencing problem gambling have accessed gambling support services – with that figure dropping to less than one in twenty people for those at risk of experiencing problem gambling, highlighting the need-support gap that exists today and something we previously identified in our 2024 Shining a Light report. 

Dr Naomi Muggleton from Warwick Business School then presented on her pioneering 2021 paper ‘The association between gambling and financial, social and health outcomes in big financial data’. The study examined transaction data of 6.5 million people over a seven year period, and found gambling to be associated with greater financial distress. People who gambled were also more likely to use unplanned overdrafts, miss essential payments or experience negative lifestyle outcomes.

Ian, a member of our Research Community, shared his experience of gambling harm via video. Ian’s testimony included details about how he felt that it would have been possible for his bank to detect he was experiencing harm while gambling.

Discussion moved on to our recently published First line of defence policy note, where we explored the range of data points that could be analysed to identify people at potential risk of gambling harms. Including: 

• Spending indicators – the proportion of a customer’s disposable income that is being spent on gambling, either the total or net gambling spend by a customer. 
• Behavioural indicators – changes to gambling spending patterns over time, an escalation of frequency of deposits to gambling operators, or high volumes of night-time gambling.
• Applying an affordability lens to a customer’s gambling spend or behaviour – problem debt, low savings and the use of overdrafts could be indicators that gambling might be impacting someone’s life if it impacts their ability to make essential payments or they’re taking on more debt to facilitate gambling. 

We explored how these indicators could be applied in practice, and presented possible spending, behavioural and affordability thresholds that firms could use to identify and segment customers into potential at-risk groups and to design proactive targeted communications. 

Finally, we highlighted our Gambling Harms Communications Principles for banks. One consideration for firms is the stigma many people experience, and how communications must be designed with this understanding in mind to avoid compounding shame and secrecy if not delivered correctly and at the right time.

The attendees spanned data analytics, product, communications and marketing teams and were split into two breakouts – one with a focus on data, while the other had a communications lens.

The 20 stakeholders from across our seven member firms (Barclays, first direct, HSBC UK, Nationwide, Monzo, Starling & Virgin Money) participated in discussions of the existing challenges that current account providers face in implementing effective gambling harms transaction data analysis and proactive communication, as well as exploring ways to navigate these challenges.