Gambling harm charity Ygam reached a record number of young people for the year between January 2024 and March 2025.
The organisation’s 10-year anniversary activity report highlighted that it reached approximately 1.3 million children and young people across the UK within that year alone – the highest number since its inception in 2014.
Ygam also reported that it simultaneously managed to provide gambling harm prevention and treatment education to around 10,000 delegates.
In order to ensure its long-term sustainability and inform its future prevention strategy, the charity had also commissioned data-driven evaluation of four of its flagship programmes as part of the report.
Results have shown that Ygam continues to be a trusted partner for problem harm prevention among youth-centric institutions, fostering partnerships with schools, universities, and community groups, among others.
Some of the high profile brands that the charity is working with include The Scouts, NSPCC, The Children’s Society, TSB Bank, Place2Be, and Barnardo’s.
Ygam finds success in education engagement
Continuing with the highlights from the report, Ygam saw 50% of teachers and youth workers implementing the charity’s educational materials in their classrooms within 12 months of completing their training.
Between January 2024 and March 2025, Ygam representatives managed to visit a total of 50 universities across the UK, with around 115,000 university students increasing their knowledge of problem gambling harm.
This is a timely development given last year’s Ygam and GAMSTOP study where it was revealed that 28% of UK students were at risk of problem gambling.
On the digital front, Ygam reached a total of 4.1 million social media impressions between January 2024 and March 2025, which constituted a 322% increase from 2023.
The success of the charity was commemorated by Gambling Minister Baroness Twycross, who said: “I welcome this report, which highlights Ygam’s vital role in educating more than one million young people on how to lead safer digital lives.
“One of my key priorities as gambling minister is to strengthen protections around those most vulnerable to harmful gambling and I look forward to collaborating with Ygam in future as we continue to build a safer online space for young people.”
Ygam and all other gambling charities like it are now operating in a revamped UK market thanks to a new research, education, and treatment (RET) statutory levy mandated by Twycross.
All UK-based gambling businesses will be subjected to mandatory RET contributions, with the first payment scheduled for 1 October. The exact amount will be calculated based on a percentage of a company’s GGR or its equivalent, with 1.1% of GGR for all online operators and 0.1% for pool betting licences.
A total of 50% of the collected funds will be syphoned into NHS England and its Scottish and Welsh counterparts, 30% will go to funding problem gambling prevention strategies, while 20% of the RET levy will be given to gambling harm research.
