Gambling and Gambleaware

A perspex billboard in Birmingham that fills with smoke to hide the message: “Gambling clouded everything I did.” This is the way in which Gambleaware is seeking to remove the stigma around gambling addiction.

The charity has chosen Birmingham as 25% of people within the West Midlands are more likely than the national average to experience gambling problems, according to the charity.  In context,  almost half of UK adults have participated in gambling activity in the last month, according to the Gambling Commission. 

With gambling addiction being viewed as a hidden addiction, Gambleaware is hoping to change the conversation and break the stigma, by encouraging people to ‘open up about gambling.’ The first wave of their push saw a 9% uplift in the number of people contacting the National Gambling helpline, with 93% of those who saw the campaign claiming to have taken action as a result.

A deep dig into the data has found that minority ethnic groups were twice as likely to experience gambling harm than white British people-42% compared to 20%-despite being less likely to have gambled in the last month (31% vs 48%). 

By initiating their campaign, the charity is hoping to encourage those from minority ethnic groups and those with gambling issues more generally to seek help, and results data from the first wave of the campaign suggests they are succeeding.  

76% of people felt better after speaking to someone after viewing the campaign. A statistic that the charity hopes to increase in the second wave. Furthermore, the charity found that the most likely action from those seeing the campaign included taking steps to either reduce (30%) or monitor their gambling behaviour (29%), as well as talking to someone about their gambling (25%).  

These are positive stats and show that whilst an uphill battle remains to break the stigma, Gambleaware are on the right path.