Irish men encounter 'dizzying' number of gambling ads on social media, research finds

Accessibility to gambling has been transformed from placing physical bets in a betting shop to the click of a button on your phone. Pic: iStock

Men In Ireland are exposed to a “dizzying” number of advertisements for gambling on social media, new research has suggested.

Researchers from University of Cambridge and Munster Technological University, Cork, said gambling companies are reaching young men, the group most likely to exhibit problem gambling behaviour, on social media at more than double the rate of women.

“Not that many adverts are directly targeted men to begin with. But even when adverts were set to reach all genders, they still reached that very vulnerable group of young men,” said lead author Dr Elena Petrovskaya from Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology.

The researchers looked at 411 advertisements from 88 gambling operators in Ireland, and found that young men were reached 2.3 times more than women across Meta platforms — such as Facebook and Instagram — even if the adverts did not directly target young men.

The age group that saw the most advertising was 25-34 year olds, which accounted for over one third of all unique accounts reached, a total of 6.2 million times.

They said that men in Ireland in this age bracket have the highest rate of problem gambling at 1.3%, compared to women of the same age at 0.2%.

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While that figure draws on research dating back to 2019 and 2020, more recent research from the Economic and Social Research Institute has suggested that one in 30 people in Ireland (3.3%) meet the threshold for problem gambling.

That same study found the prevalence of problem gambling was highest in the 30-39 years range, at 6.7% of that age group.

In this Cambridge study, it highlighted other research which suggests that exposure to gambling advertising is linked to positive gambling-related attitudes, intentions and behaviours.

It said studies had also showed a “dose response” effect, where more exposure to advertising increases gambling participation and leads to an increased risk of harm.

In the case of 91 adverts (22%), they had targeted men only with no adverts targeted at only women. Across all 411, the adverts reached 12.6 million men compared to 5.4 million women.

'Dizzying'

One Betfair advertisement alone reached more than 1.32 million unique accounts — equivalent to 26% of the Irish population.

“Even in a country like Ireland with a small population, the number of accounts these ads reached was dizzying,” said Petrovskaya. “We looked at Ireland as a case study of an environment where a modern gambling regulatory framework had not yet been adopted.” 

Once the provisions of the Gambling Regulation Act concerning advertising begin, gambling advertising on social media will be restricted to users who follow a licensed gambling operator.

However, the obligations under the act will apply to licence holders when they become licenced by Ireland’s gambling regulator.

Analysis of Meta’s Ad Library from the Irish Examiner this week showed dozens of active adverts for gambling companies targeting users based in Ireland.

Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, Meta and other online providers must publish all the advertising shown on their platforms in EU countries and the demographic data about who saw them.

The licensing regime for gambling firms offering its platforms to those in Ireland began accepting applications for remote betting and in-person betting in February.

Once this is up and running, any firms that flout their legal obligations could face significant fines of up to €20 million or 10% of a licensee's turnover.