Two-Thirds of Gambling Addicts in Sweden are Women

At the beginning of the year, Sweden officially launched a new and regulated online gambling market…

…but it looks like more and more gambling addiction problems came along with that.

Sweden’s Public Health Authority, also known as Folkhalsomyndigheten, released the results of their 2018 survey regarding the gambling habits of the Swedish citizens.

Details on the Survey

This Swedish survey was executed back in August of last year and over 5000 people actually participated in it.

So, during the survey, it was revealed that around 58% of respondents actually participated in some sort of gambling last year…

…and the results are exactly the same as the ones from the survey that was conducted back in 2015.

Out of all gamblers from Sweden that were examined, around 225,000 were at risk of gambling harm. On the other hand, it was a good decline comparing to the 2015 results, when there were around 322,000 risky respondents.

The number of gamblers with actual addiction problems also dropped from 134,000 in 2015, to 101,000 in 2018. But, other than that, other results show some disturbing increases.

Higher Numbers Than in 2015

The number of individuals with pathological problems with gambling rose 50%, from 31,000 in 2015 to 4,000 in 2018.

And, more surprisingly, the survey showed that almost two-thirds, or around 64% of the total number of gambling addicts, were actually women…

…which is an 18% rise compared to the numbers in 2015.

For this rise in addiction, especially in women, the pundits started to blame the online gambling industry, especially because gambling addiction grew mostly among those people who played online slots, poker, and other casino games.

Obviously, online sports betting, which is much more popular among men, didn’t follow this pattern.

Problems with Excessive Advertising

Also, one of the main reasons for this rise in problems with gambling is aggressive gambling marketing. Swedish Minister for Public istration, Ardalan Shekarabi, issued his own statement about this survey and said that the government should, “put an end to aggressive game advertising.”

All gambling operators that hold a license to legally operate in Sweden’s newly regulated gambling market recently made a voluntary responsible marketing code.

But, Minister Shekarabi, dismissed their efforts and called it insufficient while also warning that it might potentially lead to a total ban of gambling ments.

What Constitutes Moderate Marketing?

Representatives of licensed operators had a meeting a few days ago together with various government departments and consumer authorities…

…in order to make some sort of a consensus about the government’s orders to make more moderate marketing efforts.

A Spelinspektionen representative said that the government had its own view of what constitutes moderate advertising, so if the operators don’t appreciate it, then they would have to face penalties or problems with the court.

Also this month, Swedish Gambling Regulator, Spelinspektionen, revealed that over 30,000 citizens applied for the self-exclusion program. That number also includes s who simply don’t want to receive any more marketing material.

Source:

“Nearly two-thirds of Swedish gambling addicts are women”, Peter Amsel, calvinayre.com, April 5, 2019.