Media Release

For Immediate Release

September 15, 2008

Research shines light on gambling advertising

Gambling is no longer part of an illicit subculture; it’s a normalized part of our everyday lives.

That’s what a team of researchers at Saint Mary’s University is discovering as they look closely at the messages – and eventually the impact – of gambling advertisements in Nova Scotia.

The research team recently released a 195-page report of findings from the first phase of a four-year research project funded by the Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation (NSGC). They found gambling advertising was far more pervasive than they expected.

Atlantic Lottery, for example, aired or printed 114,538 advertisements between Jan. 1, 2005 and Dec. 31, 2006. More than 47,000 of those ads were presented in Nova Scotia, so Nova Scotians, on average, viewed, heard or read up to 65 lottery ads per day, or 1,958 ads per month, on television and radio and in newspapers, magazines, flyers and billboards. And, this does not include casino advertising or advertising from off-shore sites which are also viewed daily in Nova Scotia.

“The high volume exposure, pervasiveness and repetitiveness of messaging in gambling advertising – not to mention the professional design of the ads – has helped gambling assert itself as a culturally embedded feature of everyday life,” said Dr. John McMullan, the principal investigator for the Commercial Advertising and Adolescent Gambling Research Project. “In one generation, advertising has normalized gambling as fun, gainful and pleasurable.”

But it’s not the quantity of ads so much as their themes and messages that may raise concern. Dr. McMullan said the ads focus on the “cult of winning”, the “sportification of online gambling” and the “fun ethic.”

“The potential dangers and pitfalls of gambling are sadly absent or woefully inadequate in much commercial advertising about gambling,” said Dr. McMullan.

According to the report, the messages in much of the advertising presents gambling as a fun form of entertainment that everyone does or should do because it results in winning, excitement, social success, personal transformation and happiness – all with little risk.

For example, the dominant theme of 367 casino ads used by Casino Nova Scotia between Jan. 1, 2006 and Dec. 31, 2006 was the idea that casinos are luxurious places of entertainment where the young, upcoming crowd go to enjoy friendship and good living while gambling.

Less effort, however, seems to have been made to highlight the risks of gambling. While almost 70 per cent of the casino ads contained a responsible gambling message – know your limits, play responsibly – the signage was small in print and short-lived in duration. According to the report, the end result was the ads encouraged people to believe that outcomes like winning, good living, and happiness were more important than the probabilities of actually winning.

“The seductive dream world of the casino and its games, dense with symbols of affluence, consumption and pleasure overshadowed the real world of gambling with its diminutive opportunities for actually winning jackpots at slot machines or at table games,” said Dr. McMullan.

And the report also noted off-shore cable television advertisements which promoted online gambling sites for poker and blackjack. The report indicates that these ads tapped into the role that emotions play in the workings of the mind and subtly exploited some of the factors that research has shown contribute to at-risk gambling such as the propensity to chase losses and over exaggerate skill to the exclusion of chance in card games.

“The true costs of off-shore gambling were never revealed, and the harms or risks of becoming addicted and the need to play responsibly were only occasionally mentioned in these ads,” said Dr. McMullan.

Phase two of the study will involve a focus group study and an interview study with adolescents in order to gauge the impact advertising has on them. The final part of the project will entail a cohort study which will track individual beliefs and behaviours over time. The entire project is expected to be complete by the spring of 2011.   

For more information about the study and to view complete findings and analysis from the first phase of the advertising research, please refer to the phase one report available online at: http://www.smu.ca/newsreleases/2008/documents/FINALREPORTNSGC.pdf.

Background

• The research team consists of Dr. John McMullan, a professor of sociology and criminology at Saint Mary’s University, as principal investigator; Delthia Miller (MA) as project manager and research associate; Dr. David Perrier, as a research consultant; and Aunshul Rege (BA) as research assistant.

• The Commercial Advertising and Adolescent Gambling Research Project will examine the different ways that commercial gambling advertising affects the knowledge, beliefs and practices of youth.

• In funding the project, the Nova Scotia Gaming Corporation (NSGC) placed no limitation on the research proposal, questions, methods or findings. In other words, the NSGC’s role was to fund a fully independent research project with Saint Mary’s University.

• This first report is based on the analysis of commercial gambling advertising that occurred in Nova Scotia over a two-and-a-half-year period from January 2005 to July 2007. In total, the researchers reviewed more than 1,350 print, radio, television and point of sale ads from the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, Casino Nova Scotia and cable television stations.

• The researchers noted that although the gambling commercials did not directly target children or adolescents, the content, timing and tone of many of the ads did try to connect to certain preferred audiences, lifestyle clusters and to identity features associated with youthfulness.

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For more information:

Blake Patterson
Public Affairs Officer
Saint Mary's University, Public Affairs
(902) 420.5514
E-mail: blake.patterson@smu.ca
www.smu.ca