Selling lottery products to minors: factors affecting retailer compliance

Meyer, G, Malischnig, D and Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, 2021. Selling lottery products to minors: factors affecting retailer compliance. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 19, pp. 745-763. ISSN 1557-1874

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Abstract

Illegal gambling by adolescent minors has become a major issue in many societies and lottery gambling is often considered a "gateway" to gambling more generally among this age group. The purpose of this study was to identify the influencing factors that affect retailer compliance concerning the selling of lottery products to minors. The research team received the original data (i) directly from the sales agents of the Austrian Lotteries after their responsible gambling training of the retailer in 2014/2015 (Round 1: n = 5032), (ii) directly from a third-party agency carrying out test purchases (i.e., "mystery shopping") in 2014 (Round 2: n = 1421), and (iii) retailers’ responses to their attitudes to youth protection issues (through direct interface with the research team) in 2015 (Round 3: n = 4516). The data from a total of 1036 participants who had taken part in all three rounds was analyzed in the present study. Results showed that in 13.1% of mystery shopping checks (n = 1421), lottery products were sold to a test purchaser under the age of 16 years. The analysis also showed that the older the test purchaser, the greater the likelihood that a lottery product was sold. Under-age lottery sales to girls were over three times more prevalent than sales to boys. Finally, the analysis showed that the higher the number of responsible gambling training sessions completed in the past and the more positive the attitude towards mystery shopping, the higher the compliance rate not to sell a lottery product to young mystery shoppers. Recommendations to increase compliance and raise the awareness among retailers are presented.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction
Creators:	Meyer, G., Malischnig, D. and Griffiths, M.D.
Publisher:	Springer
Date:	June 2021
Volume:	19
ISSN:	1557-1874
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1007/s11469-019-00184-0 DOI 1262417 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	06 Jan 2020 09:04
Last Modified:	06 Jul 2021 07:41
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/38923

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