Help is available to fight gambling addictions
HOW much of a problem gambling is in Guernsey is to be assessed by the In-Dependence charity.
More than 800,000 milk cartons will bear a special advertisement paid for by the group to encourage people who think they have a problem – or who know someone who may have a problem – to make contact.
‘We were aware of people saying there was an issue with gambling and we have the infrastructure to work with gamblers,’ said In-Dependence manager Tracey Rear.
But there was little information about the extent of the problem, she said, and the charity also discovered that many people did not realise it was able to work with gambling addicts as well as people who were affected by drugs and alcohol.
‘We’ve obtained funding from the Social Investment Fund for a 12-month project,’ said Ms Rear.
As well as helping to fund and pay for a worker, the £52,000 grant is also being put towards the collaborative project with Guernsey Dairy.
The 850,000 blue milk cartons bearing the adverts will be in shops for the next few weeks and Ms Rear said it is hoped that these encourage people to consider gambling behaviour and to make contact with the charity.
A survey is being run at independence.gg/gambling to collect data relating to gambling behaviour.
‘This is not us saying “Guernsey has a big gambling problem” – this is being done to get a feel for what’s happening,’ she said.
Decals will also be placed in some shop windows featuring the same message.
Once all the data is collected, in about a year’s time, she said the charity will collate it and decide what to do next.
At the same time as In-Dependence is seeking more information about gambling issues, the States Trading Supervisory Board is looking to address the issue of people buying an excessive amount of scratch cards.
A campaign called Responsible Play will be rolled out through its resellers next month.
‘For a small percentage of people, playing can become a problem, and therefore our Responsible Play initiatives are designed to provide our retailer network with guidance for anyone that could be playing excessively,’ said senior lottery officer Jon Taylor.
He said that as organisers of the CI lottery, the committee wanted to ensure that the instant games continued to be a positive experience for people while providing the best return to local charities and good causes.
‘We wouldn’t be able to achieve this without our players, which makes it all the more important that they have a positive experience – with lots of Channel Islanders playing, but individually spending amounts proportioned to their levels of income.’
