Safer Gambling Week

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https://safergamblinguk.org/sgw

Really happy to see this campaign. Have thought for a while there's a big lack of awareness about what you're in for when you turn up to gamble.

Everyone understands the concept of potentially winning/losing money but few come armed with the knowledge they could be hijacked by their brain and essentially lose control of their actions. I feel deeply for all the people who end up getting themselves into trouble after a session of chasing which they were not prepared for.

You can expect it to fall under common sense for many further into adulthood as they've had a chance to c*ck up elsewhere and they train their EQ up a bit but there's too many teenagers who come in without a real understanding of the risks involved. For example, every year students blow their loans gambling and I suspect many will have even pre-defined how much they are willing to lose. The problem is if they don't know their risk tolerance it's not very effective to tell people "only bet what you can afford to lose". "Bet responsibly" isn't terrible and "When the fun stops, stops" is pretty decent but none of it informs people they may not be able to stop if they bet too big. It's not a logical awareness problem that's the issue it's an emotional one.

Some campaigning centred around "Get to know your limits" or "Bet comfortably or not at all" would be welcomed.

Many understand the usefulness of a gym induction as part of healthy & safety.
I would like to see some form of eLearning equivalent for gambling placed between citizens and the door to the gambling world.
Have people watch some BTEC level animated videos for a few mins then sail through an easy multiple choice.
Get it cycling through College that would be a good start.

Doesn't help that people don't understand the process of how addiction is created either.
You need to reach the individual not just target the environment. What happened in the weeks after the FOBT clampdown? A ton of new online games being produced with introductory offers being hammered to punters. Such games are designed with psychologists on consultation to create something which gets the player hooked as effectively as possible by aggressively targetting the player's dopamine reward system as aggressively as possible. Really nasty business. The general public never stood a chance.

I think too many people underestimate the risks of gambling on the whole. It has far more damage potential than say alcohol as you can achieve financial ruin overnight if you find yourself digging a hole. So yeah good to see some steps being made in the right direction this week.

PS No time to proofread; forgive any errors

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