Prevention Programmes Gambling Research

What we’re doing

As part of our commitment to prevention, we commission several education and training programmes across Great Britain. We work with trusted providers to help reach advice-giving professionals across a range of sectors.

The work we commission helps raise awareness around the impact and effect of gambling harms, builds the confidence of professionals to start conversations about gambling and provides clear guidance on routes to support.

Children exposed to gambling at a young age were found to be four times more likely to go on to experience problems with gambling themselves.

Our research in this area

Find out more about our projects to help prevent people from developing gambling harms.

Explore all our research on prevention programmes

Let’s Open Up About Gambling campaign evaluation

This short paper summarises the execution and evaluation of the ‘Let’s Open Up About Gambling’ stigma reduction campaign launched by GambleAware on the 13 April 2023.

Summary of background research to the stigma reduction campaign

This synopsis summarises the key insights that informed the development and launch of the 2023 burst of the stigma campaign.

Scottish Gambling Education Hub Evaluation

We commissioned IFF Research to conduct an evaluation on the effectiveness and early outcomes of the Hub.

75%

of those experiencing ‘problem gambling’ feel they cannot talk to loved ones about it.

How our research is driving change

We’ve commissioned and conducted a range of evaluations and research to highlight priority areas for greater investment, improved services, and improved knowledge on ‘what works’ in preventing gambling harm.

Commissioning safer gambling messaging research

With the gambling industry spending an approximated £1.5 billion each year on marketing, it’s important to leverage the messaging on gambling adverts to make the environment safer. This can be achieved by being clearer about the risks involved in gambling, and more clearly signposting to us as a source of advice, tools and support.

This research was commissioned in 2023 to explore improvements to safer gambling messaging on gambling adverts. The findings showed that industry’s ‘Take Time To Think’ strapline should be replaced with more impactful alternatives such as ‘Gambling comes at a cost’ and ‘Gambling can be addictive’.

The research also showed that the GambleAware logo on operator adverts are often lost in the visual of the advert, with limited awareness of what GambleAware does. Improvements to this were found by including a short message alongside the GambleAware logo (for example, Advice. Tools. Support) to convey the role of the organisation.

Lastly, both the logo and safer gambling message should also be included within a separate black/white band to draw the viewer’s eye and underline the separation of us from the gambling operator.

Read the full report