The impact of stigma on gambling harms
Stigma is a set of negative and often unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something.
Stigma is a barrier to seeking help
Stigma has been linked to poorer mental health outcomes, with people experiencing feelings of shame, embarrassment and other negative self-beliefs.
Particularly, because people are worried about being stigmatised and discriminated against by friends, family, or service and healthcare providers, it is one of the biggest barriers to them seeking help and identifying that gambling is having a negative impact on them.
You can help to reduce gambling-related stigma. Let's open up about gambling.
How to help a patient or client experiencing gambling harms:
Be compassionate
Avoid language or tones that could feel like you're shaming, blaming, pathologising or instilling fear. Use person-first language, and encourage empathy to start open conversations. Our language guide provides more details and tips on how to use destigmatising language.
Learn moreOpen up about stigma
Your patients or clients may be feeling judged or discriminated against because of the stigma around gambling harms. Open up about the stigma associated with gambling harms, and the impact it may have on your patients or clients.
Learn moreDirect them to the right support
The National Gambling Support Network is a group of organisations across Great Britain who provide free, confidential and personalised support for anyone who’s experiencing problems from gambling, as well as those affected by someone else’s gambling.
Learn moreLanguage and stigma
Language plays a big role in driving discrimination by using reductive terms, for example: ‘problem gambler’, ‘gambling addict’, ‘compulsive gambler’. Terms like these reduce someone’s identity to their behaviour, labelling them as the problem or person to blame.
Alternative terms include ‘person who experiences gambling harms’ or ‘person who has problems with gambling’. These terms reassure that those experiencing harm are not defined by it, or to blame.
Our language guide provides more details and tips on how to use destigmatising language.
Challenge stigmatising language
At-risk communities
People who are members of other marginalised and minority communities experience other forms of stigma. Additionally, research shows that already marginalised communities are more likely to struggle with gambling.
Of those who experience significant harm from gambling, a disproportionate number are more likely to reside in areas of higher deprivation, belong to ethnic minority backgrounds and report lower sociodemographic characteristics.
These minority communities therefore experience compound, intersectional stigma, and in addition these communities face greater health harms associated with their gambling harms.
Understand the barriers faced by minority communitiesWhat we're doing to reduce stigma
Stigma is ubiquitous through society, and so reducing and challenging stigma takes time and needs a joint approach with the public, media, government, gambling operators, support providers and healthcare professionals.
GambleAware is leading a cross-organisational programme to reduce stigma including a multimedia campaign, research grants to build evidence in the area, GP awareness training, digital tools, language guides and more.
Stigma reduction campaign
We are proud to launch a major new public health campaign aiming to reduce the stigma associated with gambling harms. The campaign has been developed in response to the significant evidence that stigma is a barrier to people self-identifying as experiencing gambling harms; a barrier to accessing support and a source of harm.
Read the background research
Partner toolkit
You, or your organization, can support our campaign to reduce stigma associated with gambling harms, with our Partner Toolkit. It provides advice, messages and assets to share across your own channels (social media, website, emails, etc) and with your own networks.
Support our stigma campaignMedia guidelines
Gambling is a major public health concern and is therefore a subject that is very much in the public interest. Given the influential role the media plays, we have developed guidelines in order to promote and support responsible media reporting on gambling harms. They are based on the latest research, insights from gambling harms experts and feedback from affected communities.
Report responsibly
Research and funding
Royal College of General Practitioners
We are currently working with Royal College of GPs (RCGP) on developing a curriculum, a second part of a triad of interventions aiming to improve the role adequacy of GPs and their teams.
There is significant unmet need amongst GPs when it comes to engaging people experiencing gambling harms. While around 42,000 people contact the National Gambling Helpline for support each year, only a small number go on to engage with structured treatment options rather than more informal support. This can happen for two reasons:
1. People are unaware of the treatment and support on offer, and therefore haven’t being referred to treatment or support by GPs
2. They have internalised stigma or perceived stigma from those within the healthcare system, who have not identified gambling harms as a concern
Stigma research
Since further research is needed to break down the barrier of stigma faced by people in accessing services, and to reduce gambling harms including the harm of stigmatisation and the discrimination it drives, GambleAware has funded research to build knowledge about the lived experience of communities of people who experience gambling harms of stigmatisation and discrimination they experience.
This research will establish how people who experience gambling harms are stigmatised in society in Great Britain (and how to measure the stigmatisation of gambling harms), and what their lived experience is of stigmatisation, alongside establishing a matrix of stigmatising language and constructs around gambling harms.