The impact of gambling advertising and marketing on young people: A critical review and analysis of methodologies

Studies have raised concerns regarding how gambling advertising influences young people, particularly in relation to normalizing and glamourising the activity. This paper scrutinizes the accuracy of claims made in the existing literature on how gambling advertising influences young people by critically analyzing studies’ methodologies. A total of 19 studies were suitable for the review. Five primary criteria were used to evaluate studies: 1) representativeness of young people; 2) gambling outcome measures (dependent variables); 3) advertising exposure measures (independent variables); 4) consideration of third variables; and 5) use of comparisons. It was generally found that awareness of and attitudes toward gambling, as well as self-reported gambling behavior, were influenced by gambling advertising. However, intentions to gamble were not markedly influenced by gambling advertising. These findings are discussed in light of the methodological limitations of each of these outcomes. Measures of exposure to advertising were found to be speculative and did not consider that gambling advertising is often targeted at consumers and that interest in gambling likely influences the reporting of exposure to gambling advertising. The paper concludes with methodological considerations for future research, such as the use of real exposure to advertising and the evaluation of responsible gambling messages.