Centre for Research on Addiction, Control, and Governance (CEACG), Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 33, Helsinki, 00014, Finland.
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Mannerheimintie 166, Helsinki, 00271, Finland.
BMC Public Health. 2024 Mar 14;24(1):809. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-18325-z.
Gambling causes important harms in societies. According to the public health approach, the most effective policies to reduce harms target full populations. Availability restrictions and mandatory precommitment are among the most effective measures. However, restrictions on the availability of some gambling products or channels may also be offset by increased consumption in other products. Substitution effects can have negative public health impacts due to differing harm potential across different gambling products. This paper uses longitudinal sales data (2019-2022) from the Finnish gambling monopoly Veikkaus. During the observation period, the availability of gambling was restricted in Finland due to subsequent waves of Covid-19-related restrictions. In addition, the gambling monopoly introduced mandatory precommitment to land-based EGMs. We focus on how these restrictive policy changes impacted the total consumption of gambling and possible substitution effects.
The Finnish gambling monopoly provided weekly theoretical loss data per gambling product category and gambling channel (online, land-based) for the period of January 2019 - July 2022 based on a statutory obligation. We analysed the effects of availability restrictions and other public health measures on the consumption of different products using descriptive time series and regression analyses. We compared the sale of land-based products to online equivalents at product category level and included main policy change periods in the models.
Total consumption of gambling declined during 2019-2022 mainly due to reduced land-based electronic gambling machine (EGM) consumption. Declines in land-based EGM sales were not offset by online alternatives or other close substitutes in the long term. However, during the first wave of Covid-19, there was an observable substitution of land-based table games by online alternatives and land-based horse betting and possibly sports betting by online horse betting. Overall, the results also show that Covid-19 functioned as a boost to an already existing trend of increasing digitalisation of gambling.
The study provides empirical support for the effectiveness of public health-oriented policies in reducing the total consumption of gambling. Availability restrictions and mandatory precommitment are therefore likely to also reduce the burden of harms of gambling to individuals and societies.
赌博在社会中造成了重要的危害。根据公共卫生方法，减少危害最有效的政策针对的是全体人口。供应限制和强制性预承诺是最有效的措施之一。然而，对某些赌博产品或渠道的供应限制可能会被其他产品消费的增加所抵消。由于不同赌博产品的危害潜力不同，替代效应可能会对公共卫生产生负面影响。本文使用芬兰赌博垄断企业 Veikkaus 的纵向销售数据（2019-2022 年）。在观察期间，由于随后的几波与新冠疫情相关的限制，芬兰对赌博的供应受到限制。此外，赌博垄断企业引入了对陆地电子游戏机的强制性预承诺。我们专注于这些限制性政策变化如何影响赌博的总消费和可能的替代效应。
芬兰赌博垄断企业根据法定义务，按每周为每个赌博产品类别和赌博渠道（在线、陆地）提供理论损失数据。我们使用描述性时间序列和回归分析来分析供应限制和其他公共卫生措施对不同产品消费的影响。我们在模型中比较了产品类别层面陆地产品与在线产品的销售情况，并纳入了主要政策变化时期。
2019-2022 年期间，赌博总消费下降，主要原因是陆地电子赌博机（EGM）消费减少。陆地 EGM 销售额的下降并未被长期在线替代品或其他密切替代品所抵消。然而，在第一波新冠疫情期间，陆地桌面游戏被在线替代品所替代，陆地赛马和可能的体育博彩被在线赛马所替代。总体而言，结果还表明，新冠疫情促进了赌博数字化的现有趋势。
该研究为减少赌博总消费的面向公共卫生的政策的有效性提供了经验支持。因此，供应限制和强制性预承诺可能也会减少赌博对个人和社会的危害负担。
