UKGC: No Historical Data on Gambling Premises
FOI reveals no central record exists to track long-term changes in the UK's land-based gambling venues, posing challenges for research and transparency.
A Freedom of Information request has confirmed the UK Gambling Commission does not keep historical records of licensed gambling premises. This data gap makes it difficult to analyse long-term trends in the number and location of betting shops, casinos, and arcades. The responsibility for this historical data lies with individual local authorities.
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A Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed that the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) does not hold any historical data on the number or location of licensed gambling premises across the country.
The disclosure highlights a significant data gap for anyone seeking to analyse long-term trends in the land-based gambling sector, such as the growth or decline of betting shops, casinos, and adult gaming centres over time.
The FOI Request and Response
In a request dated 5 October 2023, an individual asked the UKGC if it held historical versions of its public premises register. The Commission's response confirmed that this information is not held.
The UKGC explained that its online register of gambling premises is a "live register" that is updated nightly. As part of this process, previous versions of the data are not archived or stored. The regulator stated, "we do not store previous versions. As such, no information is held by the Gambling Commission falling within the scope of your request."
This means it is impossible to use the UKGC's central database to track changes in the physical gambling landscape from one year to the next.
Why This Matters for Consumers and Researchers
The absence of a centralised historical record presents a major obstacle for researchers, policymakers, and community groups. Without this data, it is extremely difficult to answer key questions on a national scale, such as:
- How has the number of betting shops in Great Britain changed over the last decade?
- Are adult gaming centres clustering in specific economically-deprived areas over time?
- What has been the net effect of closures and openings on the total number of gambling venues?
For consumers and local communities, this lack of accessible historical data makes it harder to scrutinise the changing gambling environment in their area and hold local authorities to account on licensing decisions.
A Fragmented System
The UKGC's response also sheds light on the fragmented nature of gambling regulation in the UK. While the Commission is responsible for licensing operators, it does not issue premises licences.
That responsibility falls to hundreds of individual licensing authorities, which are typically the local councils for the area where the business is located. The UKGC advised the requester to "contact individual licensing authorities to obtain more detailed information about premises licences."
Furthermore, the Commission added a significant caveat about its own live register, stating that it "cannot provide any assurances on the completeness and accuracy of this data." This suggests that the information it collates from local authorities may contain inconsistencies.
Significance and Implications
The FOI disclosure confirms that tracking the history of Britain's gambling high street is not a simple task. While the UKGC provides a snapshot of the current situation, any longitudinal analysis requires a far more laborious process of collating data from numerous individual local authorities, each with its own record-keeping systems.
This data gap complicates efforts to build a comprehensive, evidence-based picture of the land-based gambling market's evolution and its impact on communities across the UK.