New research using open banking data suggests the £150 net-deposit threshold for financial risk checks may be catching too many low-risk gamblers.
The study was published in the journal Addiction and carried out by researchers Robert Heirene from the University of Sydney and Philip Newall from the University of Bristol.
Researchers reanalysed open banking data from 424 UK gamblers, combining transaction records with self-reported Problem Gambling Severity Index scores to simulate real-world impacts of the Gambling Commission’s financial vulnerability check regime.
Over a 12-month period, roughly two-thirds of at-risk gamblers and nearly half of those classed as low- or no-risk crossed the £150 threshold at least once.
That finding suggests the current trigger point captures a substantial proportion of people not experiencing significant gambling harm, raising questions about the policy’s balance between protection and consumer freedom.
Heirene wrote on LinkedIn: “Overall, the £150 value is probably defensible, but it does seem to land more on the side of harm reduction than what we’ve called ‘liberty preservation’.”
He added: “This might be a good thing – a harm minimisation strategy probably should prioritise harm reduction! But one of the key purposes of our article is to highlight the trade-off here.”
Heirene was also clear that the checks carry a cost, writing: “These checks are unlikely to be cost-free from any perspective.”
The researchers found the threshold’s area under the curve came in at 0.66, indicating only a fair level of discrimination between at-risk and lower-risk consumers.
Their modelling calculated that a slightly higher threshold of around £187 would provide a marginally better balance between the two policy goals, though £150 remained within the statistical range of acceptable values.
The paper also found that thresholds based on spending across all operators performed better at identifying at-risk consumers than the single-operator approach currently used in the UK.
In line with the approach taken in the Netherlands, the study found evidence that lower thresholds may be more appropriate for younger adults, with optimal values generally lower for those under 30.
This is consistent with existing evidence suggesting younger people face a higher risk of gambling-related harm than older age groups.
The authors acknowledged clear limitations, noting their sample was recruited via the crowdsourcing platform Prolific and was therefore not representative of the broader UK gambling population.
The paper called on policymakers to combine larger and more representative open banking datasets with self-reported harm scores, pointing to the Gambling Commission’s Gambling Survey for Great Britain as a potential vehicle for more robust future analysis.
