What’s the equivalent of 14 units of alcohol per week* for gambling?
“When I meet disordered gamblers and their relatives in my daily work, it constantly reminds me of the importance of harm minimisation in gambling. The silver bullet for preventing problem gambling is yet not seen (and never will be). But here and now, there are real and tangible opportunities for minimising the harms of gambling.”
In the alcohol field, low risk drinking guidelines are used as a way of advising consumers on the maximum number of standard drinks a person can drink while keeping health risks from alcohol low.
On the same theme, lower-risk gambling guidelines were introduced in Canada as a way of guiding gamblers on how to reduce their risks of gambling harm. The guidelines are based on self reported data from eight countries.
According to the guidelines, you should
gamble no more than 1 % of household income before tax per month.
gamble no more than 4 days per month.
avoid regularly gambling at more than 2 types of games.
In his latest article, Jakob Jonsson and co-authors* are searching for low risk gambling levels, using actual gambling data from Norsk Tipping.
So what’s the equivalent of 14 units of alcohol* per week for gambling when looking at actual gambling data?
The article found that monthly lower-risk gambling levels were less than
8.7 days of gambling
54 € expenditure
72–83 min duration
3 types of games
118–140 € wager
These levels are higher than the lower-risk gambling guidelines, which is expected as the latter are based on self reported data.
So what can we learn from this?
The main take home message for the industry is that customers experiencing harm from gambling are found at all consumption levels (more among high consumers, of course). One explanation for this is that customers gamble with multiple operators, and each company sees only a proportion of the total gambling behaviour.
That implies that harm minimisation and Duty of Care should target all customers. And there’s no need to worry about disturbing “normal gamblers”. Modern research has found that customers are not disturbed by harm minimisation or responsible gambling measures, as long as they are well integrated in the gambling environment and user friendly.
*UK low risk drinking guidelines, https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/facts/alcoholic-drinks-and-units/low-risk-drinking-guidelines
* David C. Hodgins, Axel Lyckberg, Shawn Currie, Matthew M. Young, Ståle Pallesen and Per Carlbring
