Perceptions of gambling marketing among young adults who gamble in Ireland

Figures & data

Table 1. Sample profile.

Interview	Gender	Age	Social grade	Risk group	PGSI Score
1	Male	22	C1	High-risk	8
2	Female	30	C1	Low-risk	0
3	Male	21	C2	Low-risk	2
4	Female	32	C1	High-risk	17
5	Female	34	C2	Low-risk	1
6	Male	18	D	Low-risk	1
7	Male	22	C2	High-risk	15
8	Male	21	D	Low-risk	0
9	Male	33	B	High-risk	25
10	Male	28	B	Low-risk	0
11	Female	24	C1	Low-risk	2
12	Female	31	C1	Low-risk	0
13	Male	34	C1	High-risk	16
14	Male	28	D	High-risk	17
15	Female	34	C2	High-risk	19
16	Male	23	D	High-risk	19

Table 2. Overview of themes and sub-themes.

Main Themes	Sub-themes	Example quote
Exposure to gambling marketing	Ubiquity	Everywhere I can think of I think I’ve probably seen gambling adverts (Int 3, M, LR) There’s ads on the telly for the Lotto or, you know, you walk past a betting shop and the windows are just ads. And like the scratch cards up at the till are just on display. Also social media, like there’d be ads for stuff on that as well so it’s kind of everywhere you go really. There’s ads as well on like the side of buses and stuff like that, newspapers, everywhere (Int 2, F, LR)
	Frequency	If you’re watching sports you, it’s impossible to miss it, it’s nearly a daily basis for myself (Int 16, M, HR) They’re obviously posting stuff daily (on social media), you’d probably see something daily from, you know, Betfair or Paddy Power or one of those (Int 4, F, HR)
	Sport	Almost every other like advertisement around the pitch is something to do with some sort of gambling company (Int 11, F, LR)
	Social media	Tik Tok, Snapchat, You Tube, Instagram, I think every single one I’ve seen at least one gambling ad (Int 6, M, LR) I would notice that there are a lot of ads if you’re flicking through people’s stories… it just always manages to pop up and even when you’re scrolling through like the feed it would be in there somewhere (Int 5, F, LR)
	Direct marketing	They are emailing you to give you the, you know, extra special offer specific to you. But it’s probably gone out to thousands of people (Int 13, M, HR) Boylesports send you one every probably three weeks, Paddy Power, Paddy Power text you when you qualify for a free bet (Int 14, M, HR)
Exposure to gambling marketing	Print, radio, post	Paddy Power would advertise on the radio over here (Int 4, F, HR)
Discussions about gambling marketing	Specific brands and/or adverts	I have probably mentioned that Mourinho ad to a friend because I thought it was funny and he enjoyed it (Int 13, M, HR) I’ve mentioned this a few times to my partner, you know saying about you know Paddy Power is being, you know having these really standout ads that, that are very edgy (Int 10, M, LR)
	Sharing promotions and offers	Sometimes my friends will say like a bet they’ve put on or a bet they’ve won and stuff like that and posted it on social media or sent it to me (Int 6, M, LR) I’d maybe put it in the group chat if we’re doing bets or we’re talking about the horseracing or whatever like, I’d kind of say ‘oh well if you, you know, bet £10 you’ll get £30 in Betfair or whatever’, and kind of just share the information (Int 2, F, LR)
Offers and promotions	Sign-up/new customers	It always usually says new customers, so just sign up with this amount and get this amount free bets (Int 1, M, HR) It’s like sign up now you get a tenner free credit (Int 5, F, LR)
	Free bets/spins	With the apps I’m already signed up to, you would get like place two bets and you get a third bet free (Int 5, F, LR) Mostly offers, especially the ones with Cheltenham you know, that would be front page stuff, you will have five Euro free bet on the Gold Cup, or five Euro every day free bet in the paper… you buy your paper and you cut out the little token and you go in and they scan the QR code on the back and then you get a five Euro free bet (Int 14, M, HR)
	Time limited	Definitely at the football matches they do tend to promote the, you know, half-time now put on next goal scorer, you know, to tempt you to kind of log in then place something (Int 4, F, HR) If I’m following a UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fighter and there’s a fight coming up they’d be like, they’ll give you their pitch and they’d be like put on your bets on mybookie.org and sign up now to get X, Y and Z. They’d just be the same like telling you like there’s a bonus bet or something on the UFC right now if you bet with us (Int 8, M, LR)
	Specific odds/bets	Say in the rugby section it would be Ireland to beat Italy, you know, first time, even odds or 5/1 to something (Int 7, M, HR)
	Minimising risk offers	At Cheltenham it would be like, like you don’t lose even if it, if a horse comes second you’ll win your money back (Int 9, M, HR)
	Jackpots/prizes	They also have like a weekly or like bi-weekly draw, it’s like a Sunday draw it’s called, where like you buy a ticket and then each week or two weeks they pick a number and then someone wins up to like a grand or something (Int 8, M, LR)
	Loyalty schemes/rewards	Like Paddy Power only give you, they have like a loyalty system kind of thing … if you bet a fiver over seven days of the week, you’d get a fiver free bet. If you bet a tenner everyday over the seven days, you’d get a tenner free bet (Int 15, F, HR)
Terms of offers and promotions	Minimum/qualifying spend/deposit	You might have to qualify, you might have to place 50 euros that month in bets and then you’ll get a certain amount of free spins or free bets back (Int 4, F, HR)
	Withdrawal limits	If you were to bet £10 with your free bet and you won 20 euro, the 20 euro you win you can’t withdraw that back into your bank account, you have to, it’s only useful as credit (Int 3, M, LR)
	Visibility	It didn’t tell you how much in the ad but if you read the small print you could see like how much they were charging (Int 8, M, LR)
	Scepticism/distrust	There has to be a catch somewhere (Int 15, F, HR) They’re kind of like you think, ‘Jeez, that looks good’, but there’s always a… kind of a snag (Int 9, M, HR)
Perceptions	Style (humor)	It makes it very light-hearted and just like a bit of fun… some people with actual addictions could really get roped into this on the misconception (Int 11, F, LR)
	Winning	I personally have never seen an ad where they’ve shown somebody losing (Int 15, F, HR) Serious gamblers would be saying like ‘Well, you know if that person can win, that means I can win’ (Int 10, M, LR)
Behavioural impact	Gambling marketing as a prompt	It does prompt you if they are promoting something and it looks good and you have money there at the time and you think ‘oh I could double or treble this’ (Int 4, F, HR) I think I might have had Boyle Sports for Cheltenham, maybe two years ago I might have downloaded it (the app) because I think it was on the front page of the Irish Independent that they were giving away so much in free bets so I figured I might as well try that (Int 13, M, HR)
	Betting more than intended	Exactly what I’m saying there, the half time thing, if they put a special on it and you were going to put a tenner on it, if they put a special on it you are probably going to put twenty, I know I would (Int 14, M, HR)

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author [Crawford Moodie] from May 2025.