New Lottery Study
Last Updated: Wednesday 23rd June 2010, 09:49
A new lottery study has been commissioned by the National Lottery Commission to find out how many under-age people play the lottery. The study, which will be conducted by Ipsos MORI, will focus on a survey of 9,000 minors aged 12 to 15, and the findings will be published in the Summer of 2009.
Although playing the lottery gives adults a great opportunity to have fun and win potentially life-changing sums of money, no right-minded person wants minors to play. Quite apart from the fact that playing the lottery under the age of 16 is illegal in the UK, young people below that age are also far less likely to be able to play responsibly. Banning minors from participation is therefore essential if we want to reduce the number of people who become problem gamblers in later life.
“We want to make sure it is as tough as possible for young people to access National Lottery products and this research will help us to understand how well the current measures are working,” said Ben Haden, Head of Research and Analysis at the National Lottery Commission. “It will also tell us whether things have changed since the last major study in 2006.”
The Project Manager at Ipsos MORI, Alexandra Ziff, said: “We are delighted to be working with the National Lottery Commission to run the 2008-9 survey with the support of researchers at the University of Salford. We are confident that this, combined with the expertise of the Centre for the Study of Gambling, University of Salford, will contribute to a new, valuable set of data on the topic of underage gambling.
“Of particular interest will be whether the rate of underage gambling continues to decline as observed in recent years, and whether there has been any change in the types of gambling young people are involved in, given the increasing popularity of the internet and other social media.”