Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the average amount of weekly disposable income; and what assessment they have made of the average amount of weekly gambling expenditure.

According to ONS data, the mean household disposable income in 2020 was £36,900, equating to approximately £710 per week. This data can be accessed at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyear2020.

Further consideration of how assessments might be made of disposable and discretionary income is included in the Gambling Commission’s consultation and call for evidence on Remote Customer Interaction which is available at:

https://consult.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/author/remote-customer-interaction-consultation-and-call/supporting_documents/CI%20consultation%20call%20for%20evidence.pdf#page=19

In the same consultation and call for evidence, the Commission estimates that online gamblers spend an average (mean) of £57 per month on online gambling. However, this is only an indicative estimate based on Gross Gambling Yield for the remote sector and remote gambling participation rates from survey data, as the Commission does not track weekly or monthly gambling spend as an official statistic. The government is also aware of a recent study of Lloyds Banking Group customers in 2018 which estimates electronic transactions by gamblers to gambling operators across all sectors to average £112 (mean) per month. Note that unlike the Commission’s calculation, this figure is outgoing transactions only and is not adjusted for any winnings. Caution should be applied in considering data based on averages as both discretionary income and gambling spend vary significantly between individuals.