The impact of gambling advertising and marketing on young people: A critical review and analysis of methodologies

ABSTRACT

Studies have raised concerns regarding how gambling advertising influences young people, particularly in relation to normalizing and glamourising the activity. This paper scrutinizes the accuracy of claims made in the existing literature on how gambling advertising influences young people by critically analyzing studies’ methodologies. A total of 19 studies were suitable for the review. Five primary criteria were used to evaluate studies: 1) representativeness of young people; 2) gambling outcome measures (dependent variables); 3) advertising exposure measures (independent variables); 4) consideration of third variables; and 5) use of comparisons. It was generally found that awareness of and attitudes toward gambling, as well as self-reported gambling behavior, were influenced by gambling advertising. However, intentions to gamble were not markedly influenced by gambling advertising. These findings are discussed in light of the methodological limitations of each of these outcomes. Measures of exposure to advertising were found to be speculative and did not consider that gambling advertising is often targeted at consumers and that interest in gambling likely influences the reporting of exposure to gambling advertising. The paper concludes with methodological considerations for future research, such as the use of real exposure to advertising and the evaluation of responsible gambling messages.

KEYWORDS:

• Advertising
• gambling
• youth
• betting
• review

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contribution

G.D and P.D conceived the idea for the review and developed the theoretical framework. The manuscript was written by G.D with support from P.D. D.L.K was involved in editing the manuscript. G.D is a PhD student who is supervised by P.D and D.L.K.

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted as part of a PhD scholarship, awarded to Gianluca Di Censo, funded by the NSW Government’s Responsible Gambling Fund, and supported by the NSW Office of Responsible Gambling.

Notes on contributors

Gianluca Di Censo

Gianluca Di Censo is a PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide. He has research interests in addictive behaviours and health. He is a recipient of a PhD scholarship from the NSW Office of Responsible Gambling.

Paul Delfabbro

Paul Delfabbro graduated from the University of Adelaide with a PhD in psychology. He has published extensively in several areas, including the psychology of gambling, child protection and child welfare and applied cognition. He has over 320 publications in these areas including over 230 national and international refereed journal articles.

Daniel L. King

Daniel King is an Associate Professor and clinical psychologist in the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work at Flinders University. He has published over 150 refereed papers, primarily in the areas of problem gaming and simulated gambling.