Official Statistics

Wider Determinants of Health: statistical commentary on gambling premises and economic inactivity due to long term illness or disability, August 2025

Published 5 August 2025

Applies to England

What’s new

The following new indicators have been added to the Wider Determinants of Health profile:

• gambling premises
• economic inactivity due to long term illness or disability

This update also includes new time points for 9 indicators, including indicators on:

• children in low-income families - absolute poverty
• children in low-income families - relative poverty
• fuel poverty
• gender pay gap
• average weekly earnings
• work-related illness
• affordability of home ownership
• home repossessions - landlord
• home repossessions - mortgage

Introduction

The Wider Determinants of Health profile brings together available indicators at England and local authority level and is designed to:

• draw attention to the broad range of individual, social and environmental factors which influence our health

• provide the public health system with intelligence on the wider determinants of health to inform planning to improve population health and reduce health inequalities

This statistical commentary focuses on the 2 new indicators for gambling premises and economic inactivity due to long term illness or disability.

Gambling premises  

Gambling can be harmful for both people who gamble and those close to them, affecting finances, health and relationships.

This indicator measures the number of gambling premises per 100,000 population. It shows the number of businesses identified as gambling premises in an area, taking the size of the resident population into account. The data is presented at local authority level as it is local authorities which have responsibility for neighbourhood planning and for public health for their resident population. The indicator is a measure of exposure to gambling premises rather than a direct measure of access or use. The types of gambling premises included in this indicator are:

• adult gaming centres
• betting shops
• bingo premises
• casinos
• family entertainment centres

Guidance on interpretation of the gambling premises indicator

Travel between local authorities

Some people may travel to neighbouring local authorities to visit gambling premises. This may mean that data on gambling premises located in an area may underestimate the exposure to gambling premises for the resident population. Users should consider the values for neighbouring local authorities to get a wider picture of the potential exposure to gambling premises for people living in a given local authority.

The effect of non-resident populations 

It is important to consider the effect of people visiting other areas for work, shopping, entertainment or tourism. Some local authorities with larger numbers of gambling premises per 100,000 resident population may be areas where large numbers of people visit for work or leisure but live elsewhere. These groups are not included in the population denominator but are potentially exposed to the premises.

Main findings

The 2025 data shows that in England there were 12.9 gambling premises for every 100,000 people.

When looking at lower-tier local authorities, the number of gambling premises per 100,000 population ranged from 3.3 in Wokingham to 126.3 in the City of London. The value for the City of London is considerably higher than any other local authority, however a large number of people commute to the City for work but are not included in the population denominator. The local authorities with the next highest values are Great Yarmouth (91.9), East Lindsey (63.3) and Blackpool (41.3). These are all coastal local authorities.

In 2025, gambling premises per 100,000 population in the most deprived lower-tier local authorities were 3 times the level of those in the least deprived: 18.0 per 100,000 population compared with 6.1 per 100,000 (see figure 1).

Betting shops are the most common type of premises in England with 5,351 licenses. There are 1,209 adult gaming centres, 534 bingo premises and 153 casinos.

Figure 1: gambling premises per 100,000 population by lower-tier local authority deprivation decile, England, 2025

Source: calculated by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) using data from the Gambling Commission and Office for National Statistics (ONS) mid-year population estimates.

Economic inactivity due to long term illness or disability

Economically inactive people are those who are not in employment and who have not been seeking work within the last 4 weeks or who are unable to start work within the next 2 weeks.

The main reasons why people are economically inactive are because they:

• are students
• are looking after family and the home
• have a long term illness or disability
• are temporarily sick or disabled
• are retired

Long term illness or disability is self-reported and is defined as any physical or mental health condition or illness lasting or expecting to last 12 months or more.

In England in 2023 to 2024, an estimated 1.9 million people aged 16 to 64 were economically inactive due to long term illness or disability. This represented more than a quarter of all those who were economically inactive.

This indicator reports the number of people economically inactive due to long term illness or disability as a proportion of the working age population (aged 16 to 64 years). This indicator provides further understanding of economic inactivity to supplement data published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as part of the employment of disabled people statistics. The DWP statistics provide an estimate of the number of people who are economically inactive by reason for economic inactivity.

Summary estimates of economic inactivity by reason are also published regularly by the ONS. The summary ONS estimates report the number of people economically inactive due to long term illness or disability as a percentage of those economically inactive. 

This indicator uses the same estimates of the number of economically inactive due to long term illness or disability as DWP and ONS, expressed as a percentage of the total working age population rather than only those that are economically inactive. Using the total population as the denominator means that the indicator values are not affected by changes in the number of people who are economically inactive for other reasons.  

This indicator is calculated as a directly standardised proportion. The use of directly standardised proportions makes it easier to compare populations with different age structures. It allows for more consistent comparisons of labour market trends across different regions and time periods.

Main findings

The directly standardised proportion of people economically inactive due to long term illness or disability is produced for England and the regions, by financial year. In England, economic inactivity due to long term illness or disability increased from 5.1% in 2022 to 2023 to 5.6% in 2023 to 2024.

In 2023 to 2024, there were significant differences between regions. People in the North East (8.4%) were more than twice as likely to be economically inactive due to long term illness or disability as people in the South East (4.0%).

Further information

The Wider Determinants of Health profile includes data for all indicators that have been updated. Further details about indicator methodology are available within the definitions section.

For queries about this publication, email pha-ohid@dhsc.gov.uk