The vicious cycle of gambling and borrowing - what can banks do to support their customers?

Gambling with borrowed money can take several forms, including borrowing from family and friends, gambling with credit such as personal or payday loans, authorised or unauthorised overdrafts, and credit cards.

The 2024 Gambling Survey for Great Britain found that among all participants who had gambled in the past 12 months, more than one in twenty (5.7%) had used savings or borrowed money to do so. This varied for different groups, though, with men (7.3%) more likely to gamble with savings or borrowed money compared to 4% of women.

Young people aged 18-34 were more likely (10.7%) to gamble with savings or borrowed money compared to 6% of participants aged 35-54, and five times more likely than participants aged 55 plus (2.1%).

Money and Mental Health’s Gambling Harms Action Lab is working with seven financial services providers to explore how firms can best support customers experiencing gambling harm. As part of this work, we surveyed members of our Research Community about their views and experiences of gambling and borrowing.

Just under half of survey respondents (49%) felt that their gambling and their borrowing influenced each other. A theme that arose time and again was the ‘vicious cycle’ of gambling and borrowing: borrowing to gamble, and then gambling to pay back the borrowing, in the belief that the ‘next big win’ would pay everything off.

This vicious cycle had financial consequences such as struggling to pay bills, increased debt, being blacklisted (receiving a poor credit rating) or going bankrupt. There was also an impact on people’s mental health, such as increasing anxiety and despression, or prompting suicidal thoughts. Survey respondents shared how their physical health and their relationships with family and friends suffered because of gambling and borrowing.

People used a variety of borrowing to fund their gambling. Credit cards were mentioned most frequently, even though a ban on using credit cards for gambling took effect in April 2020. Other borrowing mentioned included: borrowing on a mortgage, a loan from a loan shark, a logbook loan, a payday loan, and using money set aside for monthly bills.

Survey respondents were asked what action their bank should take if it noticed they were gambling and borrowing. The most frequently chosen action was ‘an email alerting me to this’ (43%), followed by ‘a text’ (19%). Only 7% chose ‘an in-message app’ and 5% chose ‘a phone call’. People explained that they preferred written messages (such as email or text) because they find them easier or less threatening and they probably would not answer a phone call, in some cases because of social anxiety about using the phone. 

A small minority of respondents said they would not want their bank to intervene if they noticed because they did not feel it was the bank’s business how their money was spent. Overall, though, most respondents felt that banks should intervene as it may make the difference in supporting someone to avoid getting into financial difficulties through gambling.

Respondents comments suggested a series of ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ about how banks should approach their customers if they contacted them about gambling and borrowing:

• Understand how mental health and gambling are linked
• Ask customers how they want to be contacted
• Tell them how much they’ve spent on gambling
• Get in touch promptly
• Be supportive and sympathetic
• Signpost to support and say that help is available if you need it
• Train staff to detect if someone is vulnerable or at risk
• Collaborate with gambling block organisations and ‘addiction providers’ to direct people towards where they can get support
• Offer ways to clear debt and avoid more debt
• Understand that not everyone will want help.

• Be preachy
• Judge or blame people
• Be patronising (“remember I’m an adult”)
• Contact a third party or anyone else, such as a partner, about gambling and borrowing.
• Use it as an opportunity to offer customers further borrowing that would lead to more debt.

When asked about the promotion of borrowing products, respondents felt strongly that these products should not be marketed to customers who were already borrowing and gambling, or in debt.

Current account providers are in a unique position to see when their customers are gambling and borrowing to a degree that may put them at risk. This position provides opportunities to contact customers and offer support and disrupt pathways to gambling harms.

We’re working with the seven member firms of the Gambling Harms Action Lab to share the views and insights of people with lived experience of gambling and gambling harms, to help shape their responses and support for customers who have experience of gambling and borrowing, to ensure their approaches are supportive and effective.

If you’re currently experiencing difficulties with gambling, please access our Get Help page here for sources of support.