Only 5-12% of people experiencing harmful gambling seek formal treatment due to perceived and structural barriers, according to relevant studies. In its place, self-help strategies are a common way for people experiencing gambling harms to reduce these harms. It has been demonstrated that such strategies can be successful in significantly reducing gambling severity in the absence of formal treatment.

In this context, Alma Economics was commissioned by GambleAware to explore the use of self-help strategies among people who are experiencing gambling-related harms.

We employed a Rapid Evidence Assessment approach to systematically search the academic and grey literature from the past ten years within the UK and other comparable countries to identify the most effective characteristics and formats of self-help strategies, including from adjacent sectors (e.g., mental health, gaming, substance use). Potential motivations and barriers to using self-help interventions (such as stigma, shame, and misunderstanding) were also investigated.

Effective self-help strategies include self-exclusion, digital strategies, limit setting, workbooks and toolkits, coping skills, cognitive strategies, and personalised feedback tools. Self-exclusion was the most frequently discussed strategy within the literature and can be successful in reducing gambling behaviour but is subject to high rates of breaching.

In addition to this, digital modes of delivery, such as chatbots, proved to be accessible and appealing to young people. Women were identified as often feeling more comfortable in online, single-gender support groups, and a higher proportion of males from Asian backgrounds accessed chat and email self-help tools compared to other ethnic groups.

Internal barriers to accessing self-help treatment include a sense of shame or stigma from admitting the problem, disclosing it to friends and family, and being labelled an “addict”.

External or structural barriers include a lack of treatment options offered specifically for gambling (most self-help materials focus on alcohol and drug use), a perceived lack of professionals’ experience in treating gambling, wait times, distance, and cost of travel.

For self-exclusion, barriers included the high level of effort needed to self-exclude from each venue separately and, from the perspective of gambling venue staff, difficulties in identifying at-risk individuals.

As a result of these findings, key recommendations include:

Empowering language (such as “self-guided change” instead of “natural recovery”), should be used to support autonomy, informed decision-making, and self-directed actions
Promoting and facilitating self-help strategies to increase uptake
Introducing widespread education to de-stigmatise and normalise strategies
Utilising accessible and digital modes of delivery
Improving security for self-exclusion
Combining strategies, addressing multiple needs, and using multi-modal design
Further research into self-help strategies, including optimal durations of strategies and marginalised communities’ use of self-help strategies.

Read the full report here.

Self-help strategies for reducing gambling harms