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Guidance

The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board’s advice on the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms 2019–2022

The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board’s advice on the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms 2019–2022

Published
1 February 2019

Last updated
21 December 2022 - Changes

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  1. Contents
  2. Part 3 - Prevention
  3. Selective prevention activities

Selective prevention activities

Selective prevention measures are those which are focused on groups or communities likely to be at higher risk of gambling-related harms. Such groups could be identified on the basis of their socio-demographic features (e.g. children or young men), economic circumstances, other health and wellbeing behaviours, interests (e.g. gaming, sports fandom, or e-sports), where people live (areas with high levels of deprivation and unemployment), ethnicity, religion or the types of products people play. Prevention activities for these different groups could include (but are not limited to):

  • programmes targeting people who work in specific professions where risk of harms is heightened – e.g. the armed forces, those in financial services or professional sports.24 The gambling industry has a duty of care in respect of its own employees, who are exposed daily to gambling opportunities.25Programmes could range from education to brief interventions to more intensive interventions using a range of psychological approaches to encourage behaviour change, give insight into gambling risks, and provide tools to help mitigate harms
  • preventive education among children. Learning from other areas suggests that work in schools is more likely to be successful if it focuses on developing resilience, decision-making under pressure, dealing with peer pressure and other skills and avoids advocating abstinence or making use of scare tactics26
  • proportionate (and ethical) additional product or regulatory restrictions for certain groups. For example, maximum loss limits, safe default settings for time limits on lengths of games for young people aged 18–21 – a group with greater incidence of problem gambling.27

References

24 GambleAware, Education, funded projects and funding requests

25 How working in a gambling venue can lead to problem gambling: the experiences of six gambling venue staff (opens in a new tab) Nerliee Hing & Helen Breen, Southern Cross University, 2008. Gambling by Ontario casino workers: gambling behaviours, problem gambling and impacts of the employment (PDF) (opens in a new tab) Daniel Guttentag et al, University of Waterloo, 2012

26 Evaluation of GambleAware’s harm minimisation programme: Demos and Fast Forward projects (PDF) (opens in a new tab) Richard Ives, September 2018

27 Gambling and problem gambling among young adults: insights from a longitudinal study of parents and children (PDF) (opens in a new tab) David Forrest & Ian McHale, September 2018

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Universal prevention activities
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