Gambling Premises Assessment Index

Gambling Premises Assessment Index

Within the Gambling Act 2005, Southampton as the Licensing Authority must have regard to the licensing objectives as set out in Section 1 of the Act. The licensing objectives are to:

• Prevent gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime or disorder or being used to support crime
• Ensure that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way; and
• Protect children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling

As part of the update to the Gambling Act section 349 Statement of Principles, a dashboard was created to enable license applicants to access a range of relevant data related to the geographical area around their premises and to consider this in their application for a gambling license. The dashboard covers both Health and Social data in two separate areas or domains. A method called Z-Scoring was used to normalise indicators in each domain onto an equal scale so the data can then be combined together. This is then used to calculate Gambling Premises Assessment Index scores, which are then used to rank areas (wards and localities) from high to low. These are then split into ten equal groups known as deciles and mapped to aid applicants identify areas most at risk to gambling harms.

The indicators in the Health domain include:

• GP registered patients with depression - 2021
• Hospital admissions for poisoning by illicit drugs – 2017/18 to 2021/22 (5 years pooled)
• Hospital admissions for alcohol specific conditions – 2017/18 to 2021/22 (5 years pooled)
• Drug related mental health and behavioural admissions – 2017/18 to 2021/22 (5 years pooled)

The indicators in the Social domain include:

• The population of Southampton aged 16 to 29 years - 2022
• Occupancy rating of rooms (overcrowding) - 2021 Census
• Benefit claimants – December 2023
• Index of Multiple Deprivation - 2019

The Gambling Premises Assessment Index and further information on the z-score methodology used can be accessed via the links below: