The cost to individuals is often unquantifiable, but the cost to society can be quantified within very broad limits. In December 2016, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) published research, funded by GambleAware, on the cost of gambling-related harm to Great Britain. The report estimated that the direct cost of problem gamblers to the public purse was between £260 million and £1.2 billion per year https://www.suissecasinoenligne.com/revues/bahigo/.

That report was the first attempt to provide an estimate; the estimates are wide, and the availability of relevant data was limited. The authors are at pains to say that the findings “should not be taken as the excess fiscal cost caused by problem gambling. Instead, they should be taken as an illustrative estimate for the excess fiscal costs incurred by people who are problem gamblers, beyond those that are incurred by otherwise similar members of the population.” Nevertheless this provides a picture of which parts of Government absorb the largest costs of gambling- related harm, as set out in the table below: