2025/05/14 by Glen Dighton, Jamie Torrance, Philip Newall +2 · 1 voice
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Gambling Behavior and Treatments #Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology #Digital Games and Media
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/add.70093
openalex publication_date 2025/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Prevalent gambling marketing, particularly around professional sports, is common internationally in deregulated gambling markets [1, 2]. Some jurisdictions have limited this sports-centred marketing, either via government regulation [3, 4] or industry self-regulation [5, 6]. However, these regulations mainly focus on television, whereas, for example, on-line marketing spend is five times higher in the United Kingdom [7]. New tactics can bypass official advertising spending calculations, leading to under-reported industry expenditure figures. These same tactics simultaneously evade regulations that govern content standards and audience targeting restrictions. Content marketing is one such example and involves seeding social networks with engaging or humorous gambling content that is not overtly recognisable as advertising [8] and is especially appealing to children and young people [9]. Here, we highlight ‘content hijacking’ as a similar yet distinct new way that gambling brands are spreading brand awareness on social media. Content hijacking involves taking pre-existing social media content (such as viral memes, images or videos) that was not originally related to gambling and redistributing it with the addition of gambling brand logos or watermarks. Figure 1 shows three examples. Figure 1(a) resulted in over 753 000 views, Figure 1(b) was shared over 132 000 times, and Figure 1(c) was bookmarked (saved) over 600 times. ‘Hijacked’ content circumvents the usual algorithmic profiling of adults (typically gambling adverts are only shown to over 18-year-olds) as, other than the watermark, these posts are not gambling-related. Reflecting recent social media platform trends [10, 11], this content is often allowed to stay available and accessible to users. Like other gambling social media content, which is user-generated, content hijacking can thereby evade moderation and regulation, and enables exposure to vulnerable audiences, including children, and those at risk of harm [9, 12]. Future research will need to explore the prevalence and potential impacts of content hijacking. Notably, Figure 1’s examples are from cryptocurrency-based gambling operators, which pose users to novel risks compared to conventional on-line gambling operators [13]. Therefore, further research is needed to better understand which gambling brands are using this marketing strategy. Although many viewers might not notice the logo's link to gambling, the established attentional biases that gamblers experiencing harm exhibit toward gambling-based cues may see different effects in those who already recognise the gambling brands [14]. Even if future research shows that content hijacking yields less impact than other forms of gambling marketing, it reveals a pervasive ‘whack a mole’ issue in gambling regulation. Regulation moves slowly, and the industry can always innovate new marketing strategies or exploit regulatory loopholes, as has been observed with Belgium's and Italy's marketing bans [3, 15]. By the time that regulators have made progress with restricting one form of gambling marketing, others emerge. An on-line and borderless on-line world poses unique challenges for the regulation of gambling and prevention of gambling-related harm. Glen Dighton: Conceptualisation; writing—review and editing. Jamie Torrance: Writing—review and editing. Philip Newall: Writing—review and editing. Maira Andrade: Writing—review and editing. Conor Heath: Writing—original draft. None of the authors have conflicts of interest to declare. In the last 3 years, G.D. has received funding from Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research, and an honorarium from Greo Evidence Insights for grant-proposal review. In the last 3 years, J.T. has received open access funding and an exploratory research grant from the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling (AFSG) and Greo Evidence Insights. J.T. has also received seed funding from the International Centre for Responsible Gambling and studentship funding from the Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences. P.N. is a member of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling—an advisory group of the Gambling Commission in Great Britain. In the last 3 years, P.N. has contributed to research projects funded by the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling, Alberta Gambling Research Institute, BA/Leverhulme, Canadian Institute for Health Research, Clean Up Gambling, Gambling Research Australia, and the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. P.N. has received honoraria for reviewing from the AFSG and the Belgium Ministry of Justice, travel and accommodation funding from the Alberta Gambling Research Institute and the Economic and Social Research Institute, and open access fee funding from the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling and Greo Evidence Insights. M.A. has received travel and accommodation funding from the Society for the Study of Addiction and the AFSG. M.A. has also received open access fee funding from Greo Evidence Insights. C.H. has no disclosures. This letter contains no data