GambleAware
GambleAware was the leading independent charity and strategic commissioner of gambling harms education, prevention, early intervention, and treatment across Great Britain.
The charity successfully campaigned for a statutory levy, securing long-term funding for gambling harm services. With the introduction of the new system in 2025, its work has transitioned to the new treatment, prevention and research commissioners across England, Scotland and Wales.
As GambleAware prepared for a managed closure and the introduction of new statutory commissioners, NPC worked with the charity to preserve institutional learning and assess the impact of targeted community interventions, producing two complementary case studies: the Legacy Report and the Improving Outcomes Fund evaluation.
The Legacy Report
The challenge
As GambleAware prepares for a managed closure in March 2026 following the introduction of a statutory levy, the organisation sought to ensure its over two decades of learning, influence, and system building would not be lost. Operating in a complex and often scrutinised environment, it needed a carefully crafted legacy report that could capture its contributions, challenges, values, and institutional knowledge with honesty and nuance. NPC was engaged to support this reflective process, synthesising evidence, insight, and stakeholder perspectives into a coherent narrative that could serve as both a public historical record and a strategic resource for the sector.
The approach
NPC undertook a comprehensive, mixed methods process to develop the final legacy report. This included an in-depth desk review of GambleAware’s research, evaluations, datasets, and organisational records along with interviews and focus groups with staff, trustees, lived experience leaders, delivery partners, policymakers, and stakeholders across Great Britain. The findings of these engagements were then synthesised to identify key achievements, challenges, and lessons learnt. As these developed, NPC worked closely with key leaders of GambleAware to craft them into a clear, balanced, and evidence-led narrative that reflects both the scale of the organisation’s contribution to the sector and the complexity of the environment in which it operated.
The result
The final legacy report provides GambleAware with a robust, authoritative account of its contribution to reducing gambling harms across Great Britain. It distils the organisation’s achievements, clarifies its role in building a national system, and highlights lessons to guide future statutory commissioners and policy makers. The report offers clarity for stakeholders during transition, preserves critical institutional knowledge, and strengthens the narrative of GambleAware’s independence, leadership, and impact.
Working with NPC on this project was a very positive experience. We appreciated their expertise in stakeholder engagement, including the care and credibility they brought to the involvement of people with lived experience of gambling harm. Their ability to synthesise a wide range of perspectives into a clear, balanced and compelling narrative was instrumental to the report. Throughout the process, they applied a thoughtful, collaborative approach, combining strategic clarity with real sensitivity to the complexity of the issue and the importance of capturing learning in an honest and nuanced way.
Anna Hargrave
CEO, GambleAware
Read the Legacy Report
Improving Outcomes Fund Evaluation
NPC partnered with GambleAware to evaluate the £4.3 million Improving Outcomes Fund, identifying how community‑embedded, gendered, and culturally tailored approaches improve access to gambling‑harm support for underserved groups.
The challenge
From 2015, GambleAware has been the independent charity responsible for commissioning prevention, early intervention and support services for people affected by gambling harms across Great Britain.
Research commissioned by GambleAware highlighted that women, and minority ethnic and religious communities, experience gambling harms differently and often face additional barriers such as stigma, discrimination, financial pressure and low awareness of support. To address these inequalities, GambleAware launched the Improving Outcomes Fund (IOF), investing £4.3 million across 25 projects to support gendered and culturally responsive, community-embedded approaches that improve access to gambling harm support., GambleAware commissioned NPC as an independent evaluation and learning partner to generate insights, strengthen Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) practice, and support a coordinated understanding of what works in supporting underserved communities.
The approach
NPC delivered a collaborative, mixed-method evaluation, combining focus groups, case studies, monitoring report analysis and facilitated learning events. Two advisory groups guided and informed this work:
- Partners in Learning (PiL): People with lived experience of gambling and gambling harms who applied their lived experience to review, validate, question, contextualise and further interrogate key findings and insights generated by the evaluation
- Sounding Board: A small group of organisations that are supported through the IOF fund, who co-created our evaluation design and learning questions and helped shape learning events and tailored MEL support provided to IOF-funded projects.
Across 2024–2025, NPC facilitated four thematic focus groups with 17 projects, produced six case studies, analysed three rounds of six-month monitoring reports, and facilitated online and in-person learning events. NPC also delivered targeted MEL support, including theory of change and impact measurement training, which participants described as confidence-building, with one reporting “light bulb moments” that clarified evaluation practice.
The result
NPC’s evaluation found that the most effective approaches to reducing gambling‑harm inequalities were trust‑based, community‑embedded, gendered and culturally tailored, particularly where lived experience was meaningfully integrated. IOF projects addressed barriers such as stigma, mistrust and lack of culturally appropriate services by embedding gambling‑harm discussions into broader areas, such as domestic‑abuse support, financial advice and well-being activities, and by introducing discreet access points and safe, familiar settings, e.g., into community groups and outreach activities.
NPC’s contribution supported organisations in strengthening their MEL practice, adapting delivery approaches, and sharing learning across the portfolio. The evaluation also highlighted systemic challenges, such as short‑term funding, fragmented referral pathways and under‑recognition of grassroots organisations, and set out implications for commissioning within the statutory‑levy environment.
NPC’s synthesis of evidence provides important learning for decision‑makers in the gambling harms sector to continue to build a more connected, inclusive and community‑responsive gambling‑harm support system.
