Background
Around 2 million people experience harms from gambling, and many gamble on live events (including sports) and online. The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated unprecedented restrictions on people’s movements and interactions in public and private settings, and led to the cancellation of major sports events and social activities. These consequences of the COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ have altered the gambling landscape worldwide.
There is an urgent need to provide regulators, policy makers and treatment providers (e.g. World Health Organisation (WHO), Gambling Commission, All Party Parliamentary Group on online gambling harms) with high quality evidence on the changing patterns and context of gambling behaviours during COVID-19 and its aftermath. Insight is needed into: the actions undertaken by industry so regulators can consider immediate actions; understanding of new risk groups susceptible to gambling harms to develop effective prevention strategies; and understanding of the escalation and maintenance of harms to inform treatment and support provision.
Read the announcement from the University of Stirling
Aims
The team will address three major research questions across three integrated workpackages:
- How has COVID-19 changed gambling practices, and the risk factors for and experience of gambling harms?
- What is the effect of COVID-19 on gambling marketing?
- How has COVID-19 changed high risk groups’ gambling experiences and practices?
They will focus on two groups at particular risk of adopting more risky, online gambling practices - young adults and sports bettors.
Objectives
- To conduct and analyse bespoke longitudinal data for two high risk groups: young adults and sports bettors
- To examine trends in how and where gambling is advertised before/during/after Covid-19
- To examine what messages were promoted about gambling during the pandemic
- To examine, through the conduct and analysis of qualitative interviews, whether/how Covid-19 has changed potentially high risk groups’ gambling practices and experiences
Outputs and Impact
The team will build on their strong network of stakeholder partnerships to ensure timely dissemination and impact. In addition to academic papers, presentations and briefing notes, using social and traditional media to stimulate public debate on how to prevent gambling harms. Three integrated workpackages will inform interventions at the individual level (e.g. ways to adapt the ongoing work on a scalable group-based intervention for sports fans at risk of becoming problem gamblers, for other ‘at risk’ groups) and societal level (e.g. providing evidence for policy change and increased regulation of gambling).
Further details
Partners
University of Stirling
University of Glasgow
University of Edinburgh
Key People
Kate Hunt – University of Stirling
Heather Wardle – University of Glasgow
Nathan Critchlow – University of Stirling
Gerda Reith – University of Glasgow
Richard Purves – University of Stirling
Martine Stead – University of Stirling
Fiona Dobbie – University of Edinburgh
Cindy Gray – University of Glasgow
Christopher Bunn – University of Glasgow
Craig Donnachie – University of Glasgow
Ashley Brown - University of Stirling
Funder
UKRI – Economic and Social Research Council
