Westminster City Council and Manchester City Council teamed up with Geofutures to produce the report.
A ground breaking study, the first in the UK to map people at risk of gambling-related harm in their communities is being carried out in Manchester.
The two local councils found similar concerns about gambling and decided to work together with the support the Local Government Association to identify and map at-risk individuals within the two cities.
It is hoped that this information will help make it easier to understand the potential impact of gambling premises, and better inform decisions about new outlets.
Two maps are available, one for Westminster and one for Manchester.
The research maps areas where people are at greater risk of harm, looking at local patterns of key factors in vulnerability such as mental health as well as mapping the location of facilities such as drug and alcohol treatment centres.
The final publication is the second phase of the research, with the first looking at which groups are more vulnerable to gambling related harm.
The research should help better inform local area risk assessments from April and help the gambling industry to work closely with local communities.
This could mean that gambling operators put in place more staff to spot those struggling with gambling, more security staff, changes in opening hours, or even financial support to care providers in an area.
Operators could also engage as a group with local police or give individuals the ability to self-exclude across a local community.
Councillor Nigel Murphy, Manchester City Council’s executive member for neighbourhoods, said: “People living with gambling problems do not draw attention to themselves, and the issue has been very hard for authorities to deal with because so little is known about who these people are.
Heather Wardle of Geofutures, said: “Our maps show the places in Westminster and Manchester where those people most at risk from gambling harm are likely to be.
“This gives both local authorities and any gambling operators a unique opportunity to use this insight in their local area risk assessments.
“There is a great chance here for new policies and procedures to be put in place to protect vulnerable people in each area.”
