Spelreklam och spelberoende - Statens folkhälsoinstitut

14 spelreklam och spelberoende – en intervjustudie
Avoidance is the most common way of coping with unwanted impulses
and impressions from gambling advertising. Along these lines, the participants
in the study mentioned: not entering shops that offer gambling services,
changing television channels when advertising is shown, not reading
the sports section of newspapers, including gambling companies in their
e-mail program’s junk filter, avoiding sports programs on television, renting
television series on DVD rather than watching them when aired with
commercial breaks, and throwing away postal advertising without opening
the envelopes. Some of the participants in the study told how they coped
intellectually with gambling advertising, such as by trying to think rationally
when watching advertising. For instance, one person, who was tempted
by advertising for Internet poker, resisted by thinking that he would not
win in the long run and that, if he gave in to the temptation, he risked a
relapse into compulsive gambling.
The study also accounts for how the persons interviewed more generally
react when confronted with gambling advertising, and what thoughts they
have on the promotion of gambling in Sweden. The opinions and experiences
presented are those of persons who have years of experience of gambling
problems – their own and those of others – and can therefore be valuable to
those, in the gambling industry or elsewhere, who have an interest in
responsible provision of gambling.
A majority of the participants who had quit gambling said that they had
been bothered by advertising. They reported that gambling advertising,
both specific kinds of advertising and in general, made them uneasy. Such
feelings were most often aroused by aggressive advertising, i.e. advertising
that suddenly appears on television or is otherwise pushy and hard to
avoid. Uneasiness is felt for a variety of reasons: the advertising provides
impulses to gamble, the person does not want to think about gambling
since it has entailed so much trouble, or the person is disgusted by exhortations
to gamble since he or she knows that gambling can ruin a person’s life.
Among those interviewed, eight people accepted gambling advertising
without much reservation. At most, they questioned the wording of some
ads and the volume of advertising for some games. Ten people were moderately
critical. They criticized the form and content of several forms of
advertising and were positive to restrictions of gambling advertising. Seven
people were strongly critical. They expressed aversion to all or most forms