Not always as advertised: Different effects from viewing safer gambling adverts on gambling urges

Abstract

Public concern around gambling advertising in the UK has been met not by government action but by industry self-regulations, such as a forthcoming voluntary ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsorship in Premier League soccer. “Safer gambling” adverts are one recent example, and are TV commercials which inform viewers about gambling-related harm. The present work is the first independent evaluation of safer gambling adverts by both gambling operators and an independent charity called GambleAware. We observed the change in participants’ (N=2,741) Gambling Urge Scale (GUS) scores after viewing either: a conventional financial inducement gambling advert, a gambling operator’s safer gambling advert, an advert from the GambleAware “bet regret” campaign, an advert from the GambleAware “stigma reduction” campaign, or a control advert that was not about gambling. Viewing a neutral control advert led to a significant baseline reduction in GUS scores. GUS scores increased after viewing a financial inducement advert, and also increased significantly compared to the control after viewing an operator’s safer gambling advert. Bet regret adverts had no additional effect on GUS scores in comparison to the control, and GUS scores decreased significantly after viewing a stigma reduction advert. An interaction effect model suggested that higher GUS decreases were at times reported by participants who were at higher risk of harm. Overall, this study introduces a novel paradigm for evaluating safer gambling adverts, uncovers a potential downside from gambling operators’ safer gambling adverts, and reveals variation in the potential effectiveness of independently-delivered safer gambling adverts.