If you think of the previous chapters on how the gambling industry tries to impact young people’s attitude towards gambling, it is important to understand your role in preventing such developments. It is one thing, to know how to protect yourself from gambling harms, but knowing how a lot of your friends and others around you probably don’t know about the realities of gambling harms could be your call to action.
After having learned on how to detect indirect gambling content on social media (see chapter 8) you can think of how you’d like to let your peers know about the facts and realities about gambling harms and it’s prevention.
An easy way of doing so is when you come across a post or comment which clearly shows obvious promotion of gambling, or simply doesn’t reflect the facts about gambling harm correctly. You can dislike such videos, comments or messages and you can even engage in constructive dialogue countering such with facts and realities about gambling.
Creating your own content is of course a wonderful method to make more people aware of gambling harms. You can for example use one of the gambling fallacies as a basis and showcase how those beliefs are wrong. It is important that your message is constructive and non-judgmental. Use facts, be humorous and communicate what can be done to prevent gambling harm. Focus on the positive outcome of non-gambling and provide a link to more support and information. You should be warned though, that there will be also potentially opposing responses.
Also, you can follow this TikTok and Instagram channels. You can reshare the materials we have been developing there and have a positive impact on your pears and community. Even better if you join us as a volunteer in our gambling harm prevention campaigns. Get in touch with us via email: toimisto@sosped.fi or phone: +358 50 566 2414