Britons Collect Taxes From Casinos To Launch Anti-Gambling Ads

In the UK, there is a problem: advertising for casinos and sportsbooks follows people everywhere. The average Briton sees it more than 1500 times a year, and football fans see it almost every second.

Dr. Torrance's experiment

With funding from the academic community, Torrance gathered 1,500 active casino players for his experiment. The idea was simple: get them to watch anti-gambling ads and then poll them. The goal of this "counter-advertising" seems to have been as harsh as possible: "you'll lose all your money", "winning is a trap", "free spins aren't free".

After watching, participants had to answer questions to find out how their attitudes towards gambling had changed. The results, according to Torrance, were impressive: 21% of the subjects said that they had "seen the light" and no longer believed in gambling, and were not going to play slots.

Is it that simple?

At first glance, the results look encouraging. However, many experts doubt the effectiveness of this method, especially for experienced players. All this anti-advertising is aimed at those who do not understand what RTP (return to player percentage) is, what a wagering condition is and why push notifications come when you haven't played for a long time.

And what to do with those who are aware of all these tricks? There are players who know that the casino is always in the black, but that doesn't stop them from losing tens of thousands of dollars every month. For them, gambling is not a way to make money, but a way of life. Anti-ads will most likely have no effect on them.

Inference

Perhaps anti-advertising will help beginners, but whether it will be able to stop "professional" gambling addicts is a big question. In any case, the idea of using taxes collected from gambling to fight it is a powerful move. We can only hope that such initiatives will develop, and will not remain just part of local experiments.