.svg)
The World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested that banning gambling advertising and ending sports sponsorships should be considered, along with counter-messages to reduce harm from gambling.
Public health approaches recommended by the United Nations agency also include reducing stigma and shame associated with gambling harm, universal loss limits and pre-commitment, maximum bet sizes and required breaks during gambling sessions.
The WHO said it is coordinating a group of global specialists to address the public health implications of gambling, including efforts to develop new diagnostic techniques for disordered gambling.
The organisation said it is also seeking to document and distribute lessons from jurisdictions that have developed effective regulation, without mentioning which areas it considers to have positive regulatory regimes.
Up to 60 percent of gambling revenue is generated by players experiencing at least some kind of gambling harm, WHO said, citing a 2019 study by the Gambling Research Exchange Ontario.
About 1.2 percent of the adult population has a gambling disorder, the United Nations agency said, while admitting that standardised estimates are “limited”.
The suggestions came in a gambling fact sheet that the WHO posted online on Monday (December 2).
Elsewhere, the director of a Danish centre for treatment of gambling addiction called for a total ban on advertising gambling, including on the internet, with a three-year phase-in period that would allow sports clubs and other organisations time to find other funding sources.
The centre manager, Henrik Thrane Brandt, echoed the findings of an Australian report, which said that targeting TV as part of a partial ban, “just makes the industry spend more money on online marketing”.
“A total ban can sound extreme,” he said. “But it's a movement we've seen with cigarettes and ongoing restrictions on alcohol. Gambling is in the same serious category. Becoming addicted to gambling is devastating.”
He was writing on Monday in Altinget, an online Danish newspaper.
An industry proposal to limit gambling ads to three per advertising block is insufficient, as young people seem particularly at risk, he said. Nearly half the Center for Ludomani’s clients are under 30, Thrane Brandt said.
Still, he said “a ban on marketing for lotteries is in no way necessary, as lotteries are not addictive”.
The gambling industry in several markets has argued that banning advertising enables unlicensed operators to gain market share.
But expanding website blocking and urging banks to block payments to unlicensed operators should help curb the growth of the black market if gambling ads are barred, Thrane Brandt said.
The Center for Ludomani says it is the biggest centre for treatment and prevention of gambling addiction in the Nordic countries.
Elsewhere, in Australia, a panel set up by Liquor & Gaming New South Wales delivered a report yesterday (December 3) calling for changes, including cashless gambling on electronic gaming machines to reduce money laundering and the establishment of a statewide self-exclusion register allowing for exclusion by a third party.
The Roadmap for Gaming Reform report also called for mandatory facial recognition technology to enforce the self-exclusion register, plus a reduction in numbers of gaming machine entitlement in the state.
