Bulletin No. 15, October 31, 2024
This Bulletin is published by the Campaign to Ban Ads for Gambling, a group of individuals interested in securing legislation to ban advertisements for gambling, just as has been done for tobacco and cannabis. Our website is BanAdsForGambling.ca
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In this Bulletin:
In this issue:
1. Lancet Public Health Commission on Gambling
2. Globe and Mail succumbs to gambling ads
3. Subscribe to the Bulletin
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1. Lancet Public Health Commission on Gambling
“The Lancet Public Health Commission on gambling convened a multidisciplinary group of experts in gambling studies, public health, global health policy, risk control, and regulatory policy; along with contributors who have firsthand experience of gambling harms. Our conclusion is clear: gambling poses a threat to public health, the control of which requires a substantial expansion and tightening of gambling industry regulation. Timely response to this growing worldwide threat necessitates concerted action at intergovernmental, national, and regional government levels.”
The full report is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468266724001671?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=8d8368f5cf40ab4b
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This is a very comprehensive document, and to ensure there is no misinterpretation on our part, all of the following paragraphs, including the Key Recommendations are verbatim excerpts from the report. We have only provided headings.
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Key recommendations
1) Gambling is a public health issue; in setting policy, governments should prioritise protecting health and wellbeing over competing economic motivations.
2) In all countries—irrespective of whether gambling is legally permitted—effective gambling regulation is needed; we recommend:
*Reductions in population exposure and the availability of gambling, through prohibitions or restrictions on access, promotion, marketing, and sponsorship;
*Provision of affordable, universal support and treatment for gambling harms;
* De-normalisation of gambling via well resourced social marketing and awareness campaigns.
3) Jurisdictions that permit gambling need a well resourced, independent, and adequately empowered regulator, focused on the protection of public health and wellbeing; at a minimum, regulatory protections must include:
* Protection of children and adolescents from gambling, by enforcing minimum age requirements, backed by mandatory identification;
* Provision of effective consumer protection measures, such as universal self-exclusion, and user registration systems;
* Regulation of products proportionate to the risk of harms, based on their characteristics;
* Enaction of mandatory measures limiting gambling consumption, such as enforceable deposit and bet limits, and universal precommitment systems.
4) Gambling-related policy, regulation, treatment, and research must be protected from the distortionary effects of commercial influence; we advocate for a rapid transition away from industry-funded research and treatment, coupled with and enabled by increased levels of investment from independent sources.
5) At the international level, UN entities and intergovernmental organisations should incorporate a focus on gambling harms into their strategies and workplans for improving health and wellbeing broadly.
6) There is a need to develop an international alliance—including civil society, people with lived experience of harms related to gambling, researchers, and professional organisations—to provide thought leadership, advocacy, and convening of interested parties.
7) This Commission recommends the instigation of the process to adopt a World Health Assembly resolution on the public health dimensions of gambling.
a) Gambling problem estimates
We estimate that 46·2% of adults and 17·9% of adolescents had engaged in gambling of some form within the preceding year, globally. 10·3% of the adolescents had gambled online, which is noteworthy given the widespread agreement that commercial gambling among adolescents should be prohibited. Approximately 5·5% of women and 11·9% of men experience any risk gambling. Extrapolating these findings globally would suggest that approximately 448·7 million adults worldwide could be similarly affected. Of these, an estimated 80 million adults experience gambling disorder or problematic gambling.
Moreover, we estimate that gambling disorder could affect 15·8% of the adults and 26·4% of the adolescents who gamble using online casino or slot products, and 8·9% of the adults and 16·3% of the adolescents who gamble using sports betting products.
In North America: 4.1 per cent of men who gamble have gambling disorders; 1.7 per cent of women: 14.5 per cent of boys, 4.7 per cent of girls.
Estimates suggest that at least six other people, on average, are negatively affected by one person who is experiencing problematic gambling.
Longitudinal data from Canada showed that problem gambling or moderate risk gambling predicted subsequent decreases in family functioning and social support. Qualitative evidence shows that the strain that gambling places on relationships can lead, in some cases, to familial violence.
A Swedish longitudinal study of registry data showed that among people with gambling disorder, rates of premature all-cause mortality were 1·8 times higher than for the general population. Among individuals aged 20–49 years, the rates were 6·2 times higher. In Sweden, a nationwide register study found a 15-fold increase in suicide mortality among those with gambling disorder compared with those without gambling disorder.
Crime also has strong associations with gambling. Crimes might be committed by those experiencing gambling disorder. The supply side of gambling operations might also be affected by corruption and criminal involvement. Gambling can be used for criminal purposes, such as money laundering, match fixing, or extortion.
Numerous studies have found an increased prevalence of people experiencing disordered gambling among those living in deprived areas, among those with low levels of education, and among those who are unemployed or have low incomes.
International guidelines indicate that individuals who gamble more than four times a month or engage in more than two different types of gambling activities are subject to substantially heightened risks of gambling harms.
Moreover, the distribution of gambling harms is not equal across society. Some gambling products draw a substantial proportion of overall revenues from those least able to afford their losses—i.e., from socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals who have an increased likelihood of suffering harm due to financial losses.
Also, the fact that gambling harms befall other people who do not gamble themselves, including domestic partners and children, has been well documented.
b) Gambling is a public health issue
This Commission stresses that gambling is a public health issue. A public health approach to regulating the gambling industry and preventing and responding to related harms should underpin policy design, implementation, and review.
Regulation of gambling harms still revolves primarily around the so-called responsible gambling paradigm, which keeps the focus on individuals deemed to be gambling problematically and diverts attention away from the nature and conduct of the commercial gambling ecosystem.
c) Gambling company behaviours
Without adequate oversight, profit-driven corporate behaviours in the gambling industry will pose ever greater risks to a widening circle of consumers and to public health worldwide.
The distinction between gaming and gambling has also been blurred. Gambling features have now been incorporated into online games, further exposing children and adolescents to gambling and gambling-like activities.
Partnerships between professional sport and commercial gambling are now integral to the design of business practices and marketing strategies on both sides of the partnership, with each sector leveraging the other to drive growth. A newly pervasive social reality seems to be settling in: increased interest in sports now means increased exposure to gambling.
Canadian gambling company data showed that the top 20% of most active people who gamble account for 92% of sports bets or 90% of online casino activity.
d) Government responsibilities
Governments supporting the expansion of commercial gambling rarely acknowledge the potentially regressive inequities in the generation of gambling revenues, and tend to overlook how the growth of gambling might exacerbate social inequity by generating corporate profits at the expense of individuals most likely to experience harm.
There is already ample evidence of clear relationships between readily accessible, high-intensity commercial gambling opportunities and a range of mental and physical health conditions
Governments and their administrative agencies, including regulators, associate with gambling operators in various ways and thus function as a part of the ecosystem. Governments can have multiple roles: as regulators, as providers, and as beneficiaries of gambling. State-owned gambling companies often contribute over 50% of their gross gambling revenue back to the state or to other earmarked public causes.
e) Advertising and social media
Advertising is particularly important in jurisdictions with licensed and competitive markets, where companies vie for customer recruitment and retention. In the USA, spending on online gambling advertising was USD$1 billion in 2021, and was projected to grow in line with the rapid expansion of the industry.
The five biggest operators in the UK each post, on average, 78 tweets per day, with substantial increases around key sporting events.
The industry frames its activities in ways that favour commercial and shareholder interests. The industry presents gambling as a source of employment and state revenue and a form of leisure and harmless fun for the majority who gamble responsibly. In this responsible gambling paradigm, harms are framed as the consequence of poor choices or individual deficits in self-control experienced by a minority of vulnerable individuals, rather than arising from the nature of products and commercial practices. This kind of framing is used across several unhealthy commodity industries—such as alcohol and ultra-processed foods—as a means of aligning harm with consumption patterns rather than supply patterns. Such framing serves to divert “attention from the corporate practices, economic systems and political decisions that produce harm in the first place”.
2. The Globe and Mail succumbs to gambling ads
It is disappointing to see advertisements in the Sports section of the Globe and Mail for Pro-line, a division of Ontario Lottery and Gambling.
We asked the Globe earlier this year not to accept gambling ads, as The Guardian has done. A senior executive told us then that “we are not and have no plans in the foreseeable future to accept gambling ads. We have been approached on numerous occasions from gaming companies with healthy ad budgets to accept their ads. We have continued to decline these offers.”
But now there are ads in the Globe. It is sad that the Globe and Mail is now part of the problem.
3. Subscribe to the Bulletin
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