Please Note: We will be launching a new website and new membership structure in October

Until then we are suspending our member sign up function and will be contacting all current members to share details on what we will be offering in future - please bear with us. We promise it WILL be worth the wait.

The Gambling Lived Experience Network is “An independent voice raising awareness and support to people with gambling related harms”.

“Through honesty and integrity we bring hope without judgement”

Our Ambition

Our ambition is for the network to be able to make a real difference to people’s lives, with a voice that can meaningfully participate and influence national debate and policy making across the gambling sector.

“GLEN is our opportunity to drive the agenda, to make lived experience at the forefront of development and implementation of the reduction of gambling harms on society”

Our Purpose

Respondents from our peer-led survey indicated they wanted a network to - Support people with lived experience of gambling harms, prevent people from experiencing gambling harms and influence change to the gambling sector.

This led to the development of our purpose:

“An independent voice raising awareness and delivering support for people with gambling related harms.”

Our Values

Honesty

We feel it is critical that as individuals in recovery we are honest with ourselves and others, and that the network should be communicating with trust with others that have experienced harms.

Integrity

With honesty comes integrity; the organisation will do what it says it will where it is the right thing to be done.

Hope

The charity will provide hope and inspiration for those experiencing gambling harms. The network can draw inspiration from people who have been there and are now leading a better life. It is perhaps only people with lived experience who can provide this.

Without judgment

As a network of people with lived experience, we have all been in that chair, we have all been that person. It is not important what you have done, what’s important is what you can do now.

Our Role in the Sector

Although we are a charity working within the gambling harms space our role has never been to act as a service provider in terms of providing prevention or treatment support direct to individuals and families. There are many amazing charities who do this so much better than we could.

Instead, we are networkers, facilitators, and connectors who strive to serve the best interests of all who may suffer harm from gambling.

Rather than being a service provider we support those who are, and offer individuals who wish their own Lived Experience to have meaningful impact suitable opportunities to do this.

To achieve this we undertake the following activities:

  • We canvas the thoughts, opinions and understanding of those with Lived Experience and feed this into improving policies and practices
  • We hold governments and statutory bodies to account for the work they are tasked with doing on behalf of all who may face gambling harms
  • We connect people with Lived Experience with opportunities to raise understanding of how gambling harmfully impacts real lives
  • We create platforms to allow other organisations active in the gambling harms space to meet and work with each other
  • We help enable the systems built to address gambling related harms to be as effective and goal orientated as possible
  • We act to bring all system stakeholders together and keep everyone goal focused on preventing and reducing gambling harms
  • We bring expert understanding around impacts and causes of harm to those who need it
  • We bring together experiential and academic understanding to make research robust, evidenced, and impactful
  • We support Councils and Public Health bodies to involve the communities they seek to serve
  • We challenge false and dangerous narratives which act to stigmatise others or which do not serve the best interests of our community

So, who is our community?

You are. Your family is.

Everyone who may be at risk of experiencing harm from gambling is 'our community'.

Everything we do is ultimately to serve YOU.

Our Plans

What GLEN plans to achieve in the future

“Become a platform for Lived Experience to be more valued and play a ‘bigger part’ in discussions.”

“Establish genuine partnerships, where Lived Experience is valued.”

“Have more involvement at strategic level and help to drive the agenda around gambling harm.”

  • Continue to position GLEN as a platform supporting the needs and views of people with Lived Experience of Gambling Harms
  • Remain independent and be responsive to the wants and needs of our community
  • Continue to establish relationships and work collaboratively with stakeholders in both the gambling harms community and beyond
  • Use our Lived Experience to make a genuine difference through amplifying the voices of those who truly understand gambling harms

Responding to a changing environment - The Statutory Levy in 2026 and beyond

During a time of immense change in the Gambling Harms sector we have committed ourselves to achieving three main objectives in 2026

#1 - Keeping the gambling harms system Goal Focused

#2 - Championing what works well in the system, and challenging decisions which put this at risk

#3 - Making Lived Experience Matter

 

To achieve these aims we will be increasing all levels of stakeholder engagement, and offering expanded opportunities to get involved in helping shape the new Levy system and how it supports and impacts all our lives.