<p>Zendle & Newall's [<span>1</span>] article provides an important contribution to the gambling literature which should be celebrated for at least two reasons. First, the collection of open banking data represents a promising new method for the field. This approach circumvents issues with the inaccuracy of self-reported gambling expenditure [<span>2</span>] and provides a comprehensive overview of spending. Secondly, the authors should be commended for their openness and larger contribution to the field through data sharing. *</p><p>Their article provides strong evidence for understanding the relationship between gambling expenditure and harm. Unlike almost all existing gambling research, expenditure data were not limited to a single type of gambling, venue/operator or bank account. This offers a more complete picture of how spending relates to risk.</p><p>However, the first conclusion in their Abstract reads: ‘The UK government's proposed affordability checks for gamblers should rarely affect people who are not experiencing gambling-related harm’. I contend that this conclusion is not well-supported by their analysis, and more direct evaluation is required.</p><p>To summarize the approach used to reach their conclusion, the authors computed a total net-spend value for their participants based on their outgoing gambling expenditure minus withdrawals into their accounts over 12 months. They then divided this value by 12 to produce a monthly average. This showed that no-risk gamblers had a value of £16.41—far below the proposed £125 threshold which would trigger an initial affordability check. This value was £79.6 for low–moderate risk gamblers [Problem Gambling Severity Score (PGSI) of 1–4] and £208.91 for high-risk gamblers (PGSI > 4).</p><p>One update the authors could not have foreseen is that on 1 May 2024, the UK Gambling Commission published a revised plan for introducing the now-named ‘financial vulnerability checks’. The proposed updates actually lend credence to the authors’ findings, as the measure of affordability is set to change from ‘losses’—a difficult-to-calculate outcome that can include re-gambled winnings—to ‘deposits minus withdrawals’ (net-deposits); that is, the same metric used by Zendle & Newall. Customers will receive a check only if this ‘net-deposit’ value reaches £150 or more in 30 days, commencing 28 February 2025 [<span>3</span>]. †</p><p>A concern, however, is that the net-spend values computed by the authors included all gambling expenditure—on-line and land-based. The proposed checks still appear to relate only to on-line gambling and may, at least initially, ‡ need to be performed at an individual site level. Their outcomes, therefore, do not fully elucidate the relationship between spending with a single operator and harm or spending on-line more broadly and harm.</p><p>The authors’ conclusion that affordability checks will not impact no-/low-risk gamblers was based on the average monthly net-spend va
{"title":"Commentary on Zendle and Newall: The need for direct evaluation of the UK's gambling affordability checks policy","authors":"Robert M. Heirene","doi":"10.1111/add.16635","DOIUrl":"10.1111/add.16635","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Zendle & Newall's [<span>1</span>] article provides an important contribution to the gambling literature which should be celebrated for at least two reasons. First, the collection of open banking data represents a promising new method for the field. This approach circumvents issues with the inaccuracy of self-reported gambling expenditure [<span>2</span>] and provides a comprehensive overview of spending. Secondly, the authors should be commended for their openness and larger contribution to the field through data sharing.\u0000*</p><p>Their article provides strong evidence for understanding the relationship between gambling expenditure and harm. Unlike almost all existing gambling research, expenditure data were not limited to a single type of gambling, venue/operator or bank account. This offers a more complete picture of how spending relates to risk.</p><p>However, the first conclusion in their Abstract reads: ‘The UK government's proposed affordability checks for gamblers should rarely affect people who are not experiencing gambling-related harm’. I contend that this conclusion is not well-supported by their analysis, and more direct evaluation is required.</p><p>To summarize the approach used to reach their conclusion, the authors computed a total net-spend value for their participants based on their outgoing gambling expenditure minus withdrawals into their accounts over 12 months. They then divided this value by 12 to produce a monthly average. This showed that no-risk gamblers had a value of £16.41—far below the proposed £125 threshold which would trigger an initial affordability check. This value was £79.6 for low–moderate risk gamblers [Problem Gambling Severity Score (PGSI) of 1–4] and £208.91 for high-risk gamblers (PGSI > 4).</p><p>One update the authors could not have foreseen is that on 1 May 2024, the UK Gambling Commission published a revised plan for introducing the now-named ‘financial vulnerability checks’. The proposed updates actually lend credence to the authors’ findings, as the measure of affordability is set to change from ‘losses’—a difficult-to-calculate outcome that can include re-gambled winnings—to ‘deposits minus withdrawals’ (net-deposits); that is, the same metric used by Zendle & Newall. Customers will receive a check only if this ‘net-deposit’ value reaches £150 or more in 30 days, commencing 28 February 2025 [<span>3</span>].\u0000†</p><p>A concern, however, is that the net-spend values computed by the authors included all gambling expenditure—on-line and land-based. The proposed checks still appear to relate only to on-line gambling and may, at least initially,\u0000‡ need to be performed at an individual site level. Their outcomes, therefore, do not fully elucidate the relationship between spending with a single operator and harm or spending on-line more broadly and harm.</p><p>The authors’ conclusion that affordability checks will not impact no-/low-risk gamblers was based on the average monthly net-spend va","PeriodicalId":109,"journal":{"name":"Addiction","volume":"119 10","pages":"1836-1837"},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/add.16635","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141892405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}