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AFSG Response to APPG Gambling Reform Call for Evidence

Over the summer, the All Party Parliamentary Group for Gambling Reform issued a call for evidence to support their upcoming inquiry on the future of gambling regulation in the UK. The inquiry is wide ranging and will examine multiple aspects of regulation, including legislation, advertising and marketing, the statutory levy and new and emerging kinds of gambling. The AFSG Executive Committee issued the following response to the inquiry. This response reflects the views of the Executive Committee alone and is not intended to speak on behalf of AFSG members.

The Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling (AFSG) was established in 2021 to foster independent, high quality academic evidence on gambling related subjects. We have several hundred members and, to date, have supported nineteen academic research projects, and four international conferences, using ring-fenced regulatory settlement monies.

Scope of this submission

We address two APPG priority areas where the AFSG has directly supported evidence development:

  • Gambling advertising, sponsorship and marketing; and
  • Optimal strategies for the long-term success of the statutory levy in supporting research (with links to treatment and prevention).

1) Gambling advertising, sponsorship and marketing

AFSG conferences in 2023, 2024 and 2025 each included dedicated sessions on this theme with at least five presentations per event.1

Rather than detail the myriad issues surrounding advertising, sponsorship and marketing, we would like to draw the APPG’s attention to the AFSG-funded studies that speak directly to current concerns:

  • Direct communication within the social media marketing of gambling: A machine learning approach (completed 2023)
  • The development and evaluation of a brief intervention that incorporates gambling advertising scepticism and persuasion inoculation; a mixed-methods exploratory project (completed 2024)2
  • Compliance with Loot Box Advertising Rules in the UK and South Korea (completed 2025)3
  • Using the Meta Ad repository to empirically assess advertising of gambling and gambling-like mechanics in video games (due to report in late 2025)

Projects (3) and (4) also speak to another theme of interest to the APPG, namely, how to ensure the effective regulation of new and emerging forms of gambling (inc. crypto-gambling, social casinos). As well as the two listed projects, we have also supported research projects related to new and emerging forms of gambling, particularly those which coalesce around the interface of gaming and gambling.4

2) Optimal strategies for ensuring the long-term success of the Statutory Levy and the delivery of research, treatment and prevention work

AFSG’s remit focuses on research. Over recent years we have developed a robust commissioning model which has credibility across the academic research community for evaluating proposals and awarding funding. This model incorporates rigorous peer review, clear and detailed feedback to applicants, transparent decision-making and the publication of outcomes via our website.

With the introduction of the statutory levy, processes are being developed to award research funding via established national research councils. We welcome the shift away from industry influence towards recognised academic funding bodies. However, the extent of gambling-specific expertise in those councils is not yet clear, and the decision to assign a lead role to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) would benefit from a clearer rationale. It is concerning that in a field as sensitive to issues of industry involvement, UKRI’s first funding opportunities should permit research relationships with the gambling industry. Such a position risks undermining the independence of the levy and replicating the disagreements and animosities prompted by the previous system of voluntary contributions. Many from the research world, including numerous AFSG members, have had to point out the many potential problems inherent in involving the gambling industry in gambling research. Deadlines for applying for funding from initial funding calls have already been postponed, in response to several criticisms of the process, and there is a lack of transparency over how the research priorities have been determined.

We highlight the AFSG’s model built on an international panel of experienced reviewers and rigorous, gambling-specific conflicts of interest screening protocols as evidence of a practical approach that nurtures and uses credible evidence on gambling issues free from industry influence. This model has supported annual research calls, and the award of several major and minor grants each year, together with postgraduate awards and conference travel grants. The model we have developed is especially good at providing relatively smaller-sized research grants (£25k-90k) and supporting early career researchers (ECRs) – an important area that has been somewhat neglected by the first phase of the levy system with its focus on multi-million-pound partnerships and research grants. The national research councils may be better placed to administer and monitor larger-sized grants, if they can recruit sufficiently suitable experienced peer reviewers, and their existing processes are geared towards this. This does, however, leave a gap which organisations like ours have been successfully fulfilling for some years, i.e. the provision of smaller grants for innovative research and less-established researchers who may not be eligible for larger UKRI awards.

Finally, we believe that the research portion of the levy should consider new mechanisms to promote the involvement of third sector organisations in research. Charities can and do play an important role as partners in academic research. Lived experience organisations and treatment providers, as well as support organisations like the AFSG, support, fund and co-design research projects. As such, we would propose the establishment of a ring-fenced fund to which charitable organisations can apply directly to support gambling harms research in a variety of ways.

Summary recommendations

  • Enforce a clear separation between academic research and gambling industry involvement.
  • Create a complementary funding route outside standard UKRI mechanisms to award smaller research grants and ECR-focused awards to ensure a healthy pipeline of gambling harms researchers in the future.
  • Establish a ring-fenced fund for third sector organisation participation to support the funding, co-development and support of academic research on gambling related harms.

Yours sincerely,

Prof Simon Dymond, Prof Elliot Ludvig, Prof Amanda Roberts, Dr Jim Rogers, Dr Stephen Sharman, Prof Richard Tunney (AFSG Executive Committee)

  1. See archived conference programmes here: https://cagrconference.org/previous-conferences-2/. ↩︎
  2. See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/add.16732 and https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/46/4/e654/7727368 for peer-reviewed research articles from this project. ↩︎
  3. See https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2006/14/2/article-p714.xml for this research paper. ↩︎
  4. Predatory monetisation?: the shift of digital game design into gamblification and its effects on players (completed 2023). ↩︎