Gambling Research Funding: Who Gets the Money and Who Gets Heard?

Millions of pounds are being allocated to gambling research. Universities are building research programmes, recruiting staff and producing findings that can influence how the rest of us are allowed to bet.

Yet from where I sit, there is a glaring omission: people with extensive practical experience of betting markets whose experience does not fit the usual story.

I have spent more than 25 years trading on Betfair. My work revolves around probability, pricing, execution and risk management. I also founded Bet Angel, so I have a commercial interest in this subject, which I am happy to declare.

Researchers do not have to agree with me. But if they want to understand the activity that I have spent decades doing, why would they not want to test their assumptions against that experience?

How much money goes into gambling research?

There is no single figure in the sources below showing everything paid to every university. However, the published funding gives a clear indication of the scale.

£22.1 million for research in 2025/26. UKRI says the research share of the statutory gambling levy amounted to £22.1 million, with UKRI and the Gambling Commission responsible for investing it. This is a research allocation, rather than a statement that the entire amount has already reached universities.

An £18 million research funding call. On 21 September 2026, UKRI opened a gambling harms research competitionwith an £18 million total fund. Applications close in December, so this is funding on offer, not completed payments.

A £4 million university hub. The University of Bristol says its Gambling Harms Research Hub, launched in 2022, was funded by a £4 million grant from GambleAware.

These figures cover different periods and funding arrangements. They should not be added together as though they represent one annual university bill.

Nevertheless, this is substantial money. It deserves scrutiny over who receives it, what it buys and how the research is challenged.

Research grants also fund university overheads

The question that prompted this article was about the incentives created by research overheads.

Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder makes a striking argument in her video, “My dream died, and now I’m here”. Drawing on her experience in academia, she argues that universities’ dependence on grant income and overheads creates a cycle in which researchers produce papers to win funding, then use that funding to produce more papers.

Her assessment is blunt: much academic research is, in her words, “almost certainly bullshit”. That is her personal judgement, not a demonstrated finding about gambling research, but the question it raises is relevant: are we rewarding work that improves our understanding, or work that keeps the funding flowing?

Research grants can contribute towards university buildings, administration and shared services, alongside the direct costs of the research itself.

For example, Queen Mary University of London published indexed rates for 2022/23 of £67,734 in indirect costs per full time equivalent researcher, plus £21,341 in laboratory estates costs. Together, that is £89,075 annually. For research outside laboratories, the combined figure was £75,572.

Those are general university costing rates. They are not evidence of what Queen Mary, Bristol or any other institution charged on a particular gambling study.

Nor are overheads automatically profit. Universities have genuine operating costs, and the new UKRI gambling research call normally funds 80% of full economic cost.

But grant funding has an institutional value beyond paying the person who writes the paper. That creates a reasonable question: how do universities ensure that the pursuit of funding does not narrow the questions they ask?

The existence of an incentive does not prove misconduct. It does justify transparency.

Whose lived experience counts?

One detail in UKRI’s September 2026 funding call particularly caught my attention.

It defines lived experience as “people with direct experience of gambling related harms”.

People who have suffered harm absolutely should be heard. Their experiences can identify failures that deserve attention.

But where does that leave people with decades of experience of gambling who can explain a different relationship with it?

The call also recognises learned experience and wider collaboration, so that definition alone does not prove that every other perspective is excluded. It does, however, make the question of representation unavoidable.

If the aim is to understand why harm occurs, understanding why similar activity produces different outcomes should also be valuable.

I cannot speak for every conversation every researcher has held. I can say that I nor none of my customer have not been approached to contribute the practical expertise I am describing here.

Being free to publish my own response afterwards is not the same as having an opportunity to challenge assumptions while the research is being produced.

Independence should still allow difficult questions

UKRI’s call restricts engagement with the gambling industry, while allowing specified exceptions subject to safeguards and approval.

I understand the concern about commercial influence. A bookmaker should not be able to buy a preferred research conclusion.

But there must be a workable distinction between allowing a business to control research and listening critically to someone who understands the subject.

My commercial involvement should be disclosed. It should not settle whether my explanation of an exchange transaction is correct.

Researchers should be able to examine my argument, check the evidence and reject it if it fails. That is a much stronger process than treating someone’s background as a substitute for examining what they say.

Why some gambling research makes no sense to me

Some of the academic claims I encounter about my specialist area strike me as absolute nonsense. The frustration is that a university affiliation can give an argument authority before anyone asks whether it describes the activity accurately.

Here is the kind of practical distinction that matters.

A trader backs a selection with £100 at decimal odds of 3.0, then lays it for £120 at 2.5.

If both bets are fully matched in the same market and stand under the same settlement rules, the position produces £20 before commission whether the selection wins or loses.

The transaction record contains £220 in stakes across two bets. That is not £220 lost, and it is not the final net exposure.

There was execution risk before both trades were completed. The transaction history still needs interpretation. A count of bets, or a total of stakes, cannot explain the entire position.

This is an illustration of what research needs to distinguish, not an allegation that a particular paper made this exact mistake.

Frequency, turnover, liability, net loss and loss of control are different things. Research that uses one as an automatic substitute for another needs challenging.

Even the regulator warns against misleading interpretations

There is a documented example of why precision matters in the Gambling Commission’s own guidance.

Its current instructions say the Gambling Survey for Great Britain should not be used as a measure of gambling addiction. They also warn against direct comparisons with other gambling or health surveys to claim changes over time, because the methods differ.

The Commission has increased its confidence in the survey following further research. The point is not that the survey is worthless. It is that even useful evidence has limits.

If a commentator turns a screening score into a diagnosis, or a change in survey method into a claimed explosion in harm, the interpretation has gone beyond what the guidance supports.

That standard should apply equally to academics, campaigners, journalists and people in the industry.

What I want universities to do differently

Publish the grant amount, the direct research budget and the overhead contribution in an accessible form.

Explain who helped design the research and which relevant perspectives were missing.

Invite experienced bettors and exchange traders to test technical assumptions, with interests declared and researchers retaining control.

Distinguish between different products and behaviours before making claims about gambling as a whole.

Publish substantive criticisms and responses so readers can see whether objections have been answered.

I am not asking for my success to be treated as representative of everyone who bets. It is not.

I am asking for relevant expertise to be tested rather than overlooked.

If millions of pounds are being spent understanding this subject, there should be room for a conversation with people who understand parts of it that the researchers may not.