Problem Gambling
Gambler’s Help Intervention Campaign - Australia
Client: Department of Justice, Victoria.
Target Audience: Problem gamblers; Pre-problem gamblers; Friends and family of problem gamblers; People who use electronic gaming machines.
Summary: This program has become an ongoing intervention strategy in order to alleviate the impact of problem gambling on the target audiences. The target audiences for the Gambler’s Help campaigns are problems gamblers, pre-problem gamblers, friends and families of problem gamblers and people who use electronic gaming machines.
The aim of Gambler’s Help program is threefold and works in sequence: to raise an awareness of the consequences of problem gambling, to encourage problem gamblers to seek professional help via the information provided to them on the take away cards and to change behavioural patterns by seeking professional advice and counselling.
Results: An evaluation of the recent Gambler’s Help campaign found that the messages were particularly effective for those with a high degree of gambling addiction (i.e. those that have reached crisis point).
The evaluation, conducted by Dr. Stephen Mugford of Qualitative and Quantitative Social Research (Canberra), found that 88 per cent correctly identified one or more of the display themes (up from 55 per cent in 2003). When unprompted this figure rose to 100 per cent. It was also found that 45 per cent recalled seeing the take-away cards and of those 73 per cent identified the key issue on the card as being “who to call for help”.
Furthermore, 66 per cent said they would pass on information to a friend or family member they believed to be a problem gambler, an 8 per cent increase from 2003.
