GamCare Gambling Debt Referrals More Than Double in 2025 as Average Personal Debt Hits £21,000 and January 2026 Sets New Record
New figures from GamCare and debt advice provider PayPlan show that 1,954 people sought financial guidance through GamCare's Money Guidance Service in 2025, more than double the previous year, with total reported debt rising 153% to £7.2 million, and January 2026 recording the highest monthly referral total in the service's history.
- GamCare's Money Guidance Service received 1,954 individuals in 2025 seeking help with gambling-linked financial problems, up 112% from 923 in 2024, while total reported debt rose 153% from £2.8m to £7.2m over the same period.
- Average debt per person among those who disclosed an amount reached £21,269 in 2025, up from £13,876 in 2024, pointing to a deepening rather than just a widening of financial harm among those seeking support.
- January 2026 set a new monthly record for the Money Guidance Service with 233 referrals, nearly three times the figure from the same month a year earlier, while PayPlan reported 21,000 total contacts in January, a 22% year-on-year increase.
- Referrals from GamCare's treatment services directly into PayPlan rose 34% in 2025 to 243, up from 181 in 2024, as the two organisations reported closer coordination between gambling support and debt advice pathways.
- GamCare's broader National Gambling Helpline made 996 referrals to treatment and peer-based support services in January 2026 alone, up 48% from January 2025, as the charity navigates a critical funding transition following the closure of GambleAware on 31 March 2026.
Demand for financial support linked to gambling harm in the UK reached record levels in 2025 and has continued to accelerate into 2026, according to new data published jointly by GamCare and debt advice provider PayPlan.
GamCare's Money Guidance Service, established in 2022 to address gambling-related financial harm, received 1,954 individuals seeking support in 2025, compared with 923 the previous year. That represents an annual increase of 112%. The total debt reported by users of the service climbed from just over £2.8m in 2024 to £7.2m in 2025, a rise of 153%. Among those who disclosed a debt figure, the average amount owed stood at £21,269, up from £13,876 the year before.
The scale of increase continued into the new year. January 2026 produced the highest monthly referral count in the service's history, with 233 individuals seeking guidance because of gambling-related losses. That figure is nearly three times the number recorded in January 2025. GamCare's National Gambling Helpline also reported 996 total referrals to treatment and peer-based support services during January 2026, up 48% on the same month a year earlier, marking the fourth-highest monthly total in the helpline's history.
PayPlan, one of the UK's largest free debt advice providers, recorded 21,000 contacts to its service during January 2026, a 22% increase year-on-year. The organisation said specialists are seeing a growing and clearly identifiable link between debt and gambling harm across its caseload.
The GamCare and PayPlan referral partnership, which allows direct warm transfers between the two services, is generating rising volumes in both directions. In 2025, 243 people were referred from GamCare's treatment services into PayPlan, up 34% from 181 in 2024. PayPlan trains all of its advisers to identify gambling as a vulnerability or root cause during standard fact-finding sessions, and records disclosures in its internal vulnerability statistics when clients raise gambling during budget and creditor reviews.
Kathy Wade, Money Guidance Service Manager at GamCare, pointed to cost-of-living pressures as a driver of demand, noting that the service is increasingly hearing from people who turned to gambling to cover essential bills and found themselves in a worse financial position as a result. Since the start of 2024, GamCare staff have also been able to assist service users in accessing benefits totalling over £90,000 as additional support for those experiencing gambling-related hardship.
The data arrives at a sensitive moment for GamCare's own operational stability. GambleAware, which has historically been the primary funder of GamCare's services including the National Gambling Helpline, is closing on 31 March 2026. GamCare is now working with NHS England, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and regional governments to secure funding through the new statutory levy on licensed gambling operators, which came into effect in April 2025. The levy generated approximately £120m in its first year. GamCare received a clean Care Quality Commission assessment in 2026, with the regulator finding its services to be safe, effective, caring, and well-led, and confirming no evidence that its support and treatment is influenced by the gambling industry.
The 112% increase in referrals to the Money Guidance Service would be notable on its own. The 153% increase in reported debt is the more significant figure. It means that not only are more people seeking help, but the people seeking help are arriving with larger and more complex debt burdens than before. Average debt per person rising from £13,876 to £21,269 in a single year is a meaningful shift in the severity profile of the people the service is encountering, not just in the volume. Whether that reflects earlier intervention catching people before debts become unmanageable, or later intervention after debts have already escalated, matters enormously for how resources are allocated and what kinds of support are actually needed.
The cost-of-living dimension Kathy Wade raised should not be treated as background colour. There is a well-documented pattern in which financial stress drives increased gambling activity as people seek to recover losses or cover shortfalls, which in turn generates further debt and further stress. The data GamCare and PayPlan are publishing is consistent with that cycle operating at scale. If that is what is happening, the demand trajectory will not flatten as household finances stabilise at current levels. It will remain elevated as long as real incomes are squeezed and gambling remains accessible and actively marketed as entertainment.
The funding transition is the structural risk that deserves more scrutiny. GamCare is demonstrating record demand at exactly the moment it is losing its primary funder and competing for statutory levy money alongside other organisations. The Care Quality Commission's independent assessment removes one objection to GamCare receiving statutory funding, but it does not resolve the uncertainty. A service that is fielding nearly 1,000 helpline referrals a month, recording double-digit annual growth in demand, and operating as the primary route into debt advice for gambling-affected individuals cannot afford a funding gap. The timing of these figures relative to the GambleAware closure is not coincidental. It is a signal to policymakers about what the cost of underfunding that transition would actually look like in human terms.
Sources
Why This Matters
iGaming Times analysis: Year-on-year doubling of debt-referral volume is the kind of harm-indicator metric that reshapes the political case for affordability checks far more effectively than aggregate participation surveys. The Treasury's framing of online gambling as a discretionary-spend tax base assumes a relatively benign harm profile; sharply rising downstream debt costs absorbed by the public sector challenge that framing. Expect harm-data of this shape to feature in the next round of regulator-led product-design reviews around UK slot stake limits and deposit-control architecture.
Related Coverage
See our responsible gambling hub.
More from iGaming Times
Enjoyed this article? Share it: