The 2024 Gift Responsibly Campaign is a public awareness initiative launched by the National Council on Problem Gambling and backed by multiple state lotteries, private companies, and individuals, which aims at raising awareness about the harm that can be inadvertently inflicted on youths who receive lottery tickets as a gift.
NCPG’s Campaign Seeks to Stop Gifting Lottery Tickets to Children
This sort of normalization of gambling, even if it’s the least harmful vertical – i.e. the lottery – could have adverse health and mental effects on young minds, who become accustomed to gambling and set out to engage in higher-risk behavior as a result.
The campaign seeks to remind adults that gifting lottery tickets to children can be dangerous and have serious consequences on their lives later on.
The campaign has been going on for nearly two decades now, and it has been looking to educate communities on the dangers of buying lottery tickets for children, as well as support RG practices while remaining neutral about the legalization of gambling itself.
In 2023 alone, 150 lotteries and community organizations from around the world joined the NCPG’s campaign in a bid to promote awareness of the issue. The NCPG’s campaign motto is, “Lottery Tickets Aren’t Child’s Play,” and this year’s edition is already seeing a higher level of engagement, particularly in the United States.
Pollard Banknote Limited, a provider of products to the lottery industry, is among the industry stakeholders to have backed NCPG’s social responsibility campaign and helped it reach more people.
Other stakeholders include the Illinois State Lottery and the Virginia Council on Problem Gambling, as well as the Colorado and Wisconsin Lottery. The prevalence of lottery products has made it hard for many adults to properly assess the potential harm the games could have on young adults who may develop unhealthy behavior that progressively gets worse over their lives.
Normalizing Gambling in Children Could Have Devastating Effects Later On
The campaign comes in the broader context of increasing public awareness about the harmfulness of gambling products in general.
A recent expose published by the World Health Organization indicated that gambling is tremendously harmful to a growing number of people and that more decisive steps are needed to address the toll the activity takes on the population, including the restriction of gambling advertisements.
The normalization of gambling in young children has been reported from all over the world, including in places such as Australia and Ireland where studies have borne out this claim.
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