Ms Simone Rodda

Coordinator, Gambling Programs (including Gambling Help Online) Turning Point

Gambling Help Online is an initiative of the Ministerial Council on Gambling (MCG) and is funded as part of an agreement between all State and Territory Governments and the Australian Government

Is Gambling Help Online attracting a new cohort of treatment seekers?

Simone RoddaMay 2011

Acknowledgements

Mr Orson Rapose (Systems Manager, Turning Point)

Dr Nicki Dowling (PGRTC, Melbourne University)

Prof Alun Jackson (PGRTC, Melbourne University)

Prof Dan Lubman (Director Turning Point & Professor of Addiction Studies, Monash University)

Ms Val Markovska (Gambling Project Officer, Turning Point)

Turning Point Telephone and online services

Gambling Helpline services Gambler’s Help Line (Victoria) Appointment based short term counselling

program for gamblers (Victoria) Gambling Helpline (Queensland) Gambling Helpline (Tasmania) Gambling Helpline (Northern Territory)

Alcohol and Drug Helpline services DirectLine (Victoria)* Drug Diversion Line (Victoria)* Disposal Helpline (Victoria)* Family Drug Helpline (Victoria) YSAS Line (Victoria) ADIS (Tasmania) ADIS (Northern Territory)

Online counselling and support

CounsellingOnline (national) Just Ask Us (national) Gambling Help Online

(national)

Professional Consultation Services

DACAS (Victoria)* DACAS (Tasmania) DACAS (Northern Territory)

E-counselling generally involves the provision of advice and support via textual communications relayed back and forth between a therapist and consumer, usually in real time… it (usually) mimics the face-to-face supportive counselling approach for assistance with generic psychological issues.

Abbott, J.M., B. Klein, and L. Ciechomski (2008)

Program objectives

Attract a new cohort of clients who may not otherwise access face-to-

face services

Extend the availability of counselling and support by addressing issues

around remoteness, anonymity and after-hours availability

• Websites• Service

sector• Exclusions• ReferralState InformationState Information

• Risk• Money• Cognitions

• Signs• Readiness• Strategies• Helping

othersIntroductory contentIntroductory content

• Anytime, anywhere

• 24/7 text based counselling

Live Counselling

Live Counselling

• Q&A• Tell someone• Self-directed

Email SupportEmail Support

Are there particular sports that you follow?

Making which ever sport I was watching a lot more meaningful and also the rush you get from winning

What did you originally enjoy about the gambling?

To start with I just bet on Australian sports then I found the online sports gambling forums and started betting USA sports. I almost bet $400 on baseball 5 minutes before I logged on here.

10:15 AM

10:09 AM

10:12 AM

10:06 AM

Gambling Help Online: Contacts across services (Sept 09-Mar 11)

Since the launch on 31/8/09: Gambling Help Online website been

visited 45,767 times by 36950 Visitors Provided counselling to 1,663 via live

chat Gamblers, CSO, Professionals, Students,

Venues

Provided support to 304 via email Generated 1072 contacts between counsellor

and client

Gambling Help OnlineLive Counselling - Chat (Sept 09-Mar 11)

Average contact duration was 42 minutes

Sixty-one per cent accessed anonymously

Metro (79%) Rural (21%) Most contacts received after hours

9am-5pm – 30.8% 5pm-9pm – 43.8% Weekends – 25.4%

Client contact – time of day; Chat vs Victorian GHL (July 10-Mar

11)

Website activity (Sept 09-Mar 11)

Page viewed Number

Home page 30912Anonymous counselling 10462Online counselling - landing page 8612Gambling calculator 4721Risk assessment 2990How the pokies work 2446Dispelling myths 2222

The average page views were four pages per visit Average time on site of 4 minutes and 20 seconds

GHO visitor location by IP address (source: google analytics)

GHO page views by time of day (Sept 09 - May 11)

A stop-smoking telephone help line that nobody called: The importance of marketing.

Glasgow et al., 2003

Gambling Help Online

National Communications Plan

• The Gambling Help Online National Communications Plan was developed in consultation with all jurisdictions in early 2010.

• It aimed to raise awareness of the new service and drive traffic to the site.

• It identified two primary audiences:1. Problem gamblers and their significant others (family and friends) 2. Referring health professionals. *The gaming industry is also targeted through jurisdictional stakeholder relations

• The Communications Plan provides a four-tiered framework to promoting the service:1. Targeted one-off national promotion, 2. Activities as part of the agreement with Turning Point,3. Jurisdictional responsibilities, and 4. Longer term maintenance activities.

Targeted one-off national promotion

• The Gambling Help Online National Campaign built on Victoria’s existing strategy and the key messages already in the marketplace.

• Advertising was undertaken between April and August 2010. • This media buy included online advertising on four websites

(Bigpond Sports, Ninemsn Sports, Facebook and Ebay) as well as in electronic newsletters of professional body publications such as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW).

• Over 2 million impressions were served to 872,738 unique users with each unique user having the chance to see the ad at least twice.

Online advertising

Professional body publications

• In addition to the online advertising, advertising was undertaken in 42 professional body publications including but not limited to:– Inpsych - National Bulletin - Counselling Australia– Club News - Club Link - Club Insight

In-gaming venue advertising

• In Victoria, we also placed creative in bathrooms of gaming venues. This included making take away cards available.

In-gaming advertising appeared between Feb - July 2010 and Nov 2010 to Feb 2011

In excess of 597,637 of these cards have been picked up by people in gaming venues.

Ongoing promotion

• Gambling Help Online continues to be promoted through all Victorian problem gambling advertising.

• This means this is included on all television advertising, press advertising and online advertising.

• We continue to target advertising to each audience by reviewing segmentation research (which provides an understanding of demographics, gambling behaviour, etc), media consumption information (provided by our media agency).

• With our online advertising, we review what sites our target audiences are using (e.g. Ebay, Facebook), we ensure advertising is featured on sporting sites at key times (e.g. AFL), we target Victorian users of international gambling sites, we undertake in app advertising (e.g. Footy Tips), we target Victorians that have signed up to gambling mailing lists and we undertake search engine marketing.

Who is using this service?

Gamblers using chat are more often: Male (58%)

Higher proportion of males from NSW (69%)***

Lower proportion of males from QLD (41%)***

Aged under 30 (44 percent) Higher proportion under 30 from NSW (52%)**

Higher proportion between 30-39 from VIC (31%)**

Higher proportion over 50 from QLD (24%)***

Gambler Profile: n=700Online counselling (Chat)

**p<.01, ***p<.001

Gambler Profile: Age by Gender (Chat)

***

***p<.001

******

Gamblers using chat are more often: Gambling on EGM’s (70%)

Higher proportion of wagering from Victoria** & WAa

Australian (69%) Higher proportion of Asian background from NSW***

Problem gamblers (PGSI: M=21.4, SD=4.2) Females significantly higher than males*

Contacting evenings (46%) and weekends (25%)

Higher proportion of over 50’s during BH*

Gambler Profile: n=700Online counselling (Chat)

*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001, a sample not sufficient for sig test

Gambler Profile:Email Support (n=120)

Gamblers using Email are more often: Female (53%)

Higher proportion of females using email compared with Chat*

Even distribution across age groups Higher proportion males aged <30** & 30-

39*

Higher proportion females aged 40-49* & >50***

*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001

Gambler Profile: Age by Gender (Email Support)

**

***

*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001

Gambler Profile:Email Support (n=120)

Gamblers using Email are more often: Gambling on EGM’s (72%) Australian (68%)

Higher proportion of Asian background NSW*

Problem Gamblers (PGSI: M=20.6, SD=4.7) No difference by age or gender

*p<.05

Are we attracting a new cohort of gamblers seeking support?

Live chat treatment seeking status – Gamblers only (n=458)

First Contact;69.7%

Previous Counselling;

26.9%

Current Counselling;

3.5%

Current and previous treatment seeking behaviour (n=148)

Face-to-face, 63.5%

Telephone, 12.5%

Chat, 13.5%

Email, 2%

Other website, 3.4%

Other, 4.7%

New treatment seekers: Age by Gender (n=319)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

<20 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 >60

Male

Female

***

*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001

***

Duration of gambling problem (n=434)

Average PGSI by whether sought treatment before (n=448)

20.6422.41 22.01

0

5

10

15

20

25

First contact Previous contact Current counselling

*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001

***

Readiness to Change short screen (adapted from Miller & Rollnick, 2002)

How important is it for you that you limit/stop your gambling? On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all important, and 10 is extremely important, where would you say you are?

How confident are you that you could deal with an unexpected urge to gamble?

Where does limiting/stopping gambling fit on your list of priorities?

Readiness and confidence to change gambling behaviour (n=446)

*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001

***

*

Pre-post change in readiness, confidence and distress (n=87)

*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001

*** ***

Level of distress by self-identified ethnicity (UN categories); (n=501)

Why choosing online? New treatment seekers

Online is accessible and isn't too shocking to begin with. Embarrassed about the problem, I like the anonymity of online for the moment

(Male, 25-29, Metro NSW)

it was a decision that I was comfortable to do as it is my first time to do anything about the gambling problem that has affected me for 10 years

(female, 44-45 regional QLD)

A sense of anonymous. Convenience also (Male, 30-34, Indigenous)

Why choosing online? Previous treatment seekers

I needed to talk to someone about places to go for face to face help

(Female, 20-24, EGM, chat from this site)

I felt more comfortable and relaxed as I was able to have some time to give thought to where I was having a problem. Sometimes when I am face to face with a person my thoughts tend to vanish

(female, 45-49, EGM, Vic metro, face-to-face)

Are we attracting a new cohort of family and

friends seeking support?

Relationship to gambler, by gender

Women (n=289) Men (n=332) Total (n=621)

n % n % n %

Self 201 69.6% 315 94.9% 516 83.1%

Partner 63 21.7% 3 0.9% 66 10.6%

Son/Daughter

13 4.5% 5 1.5% 18 2.9%

Parent 6 2.1% 2 0.6% 8 1.3%

Sibling 4 1.4% 5 1.5% 9 1.4%

Friend 2 0.7% 2 0.6% 4 0.6%

Treatment seeking experiences: Significant Others (n=96)

The Problem Gambling Significant Other Impact Scale (PG-SOIS)

  Have you or your family experienced financial

hardship as a result of the other person’s gambling? Have you experienced feelings of sadness, anxiety,

stress or anger due to the other person’s gambling? Has the quality of your relationship with the other

person been affected by his/her gambling? Has your or your family’s social life been affected by

the other person’s gambling? Has your ability to work or study been affected by

the other person’s gambling? Has your physical health been affected by the other

person’s gambling?

Impact of gambling on significant other (measured by PG-SOIS, n=96)

Why choosing online? Significant others accessing support

Easy to access without interruption or questioning from anyone around (Female partner 30-34, ACT)

If you are comfortable with online communication, it is less confronting than actually talking to someone.

(Male partner 40-45, regional Vic)

Is online help seeking a client preference?

Preferred method of help seeking: age by gender (n=87)

8.17.3 7.0 7.3

8.08.17.3

5.9 6.2

7.4

0.01.02.03.04.05.06.07.08.09.0

20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 >60

Male

Female

Client help seeking preferences: Who prefers online? (n=87)

*p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001

*

Why clients would recommend the service? Because it helped me (24 comments) It’s a good place to start, an easy first step (16 comments) It’s confidential, you can be anonymous (15 comments) You can talk to someone immediately (5 comments) It helps you be honest about your problem (7 comments) It’s convenient, easy to access, easy to use (5 comments) Good way of learning about resources, other ways of finding

help (4 comments) You can write or say what you think freely (4 comments) You can transition to face to face if you need to (3

comments) You can go at your own pace (1 comment)

How do we engage another 10% of website visitors in

an intervention?

Emerging trendsPersonalised feedback

Emerging trendsForums and message boards

Emerging trendsPeer-to-peer moderated

Emerging trendsMobile phone integration

Emerging trendsSelf-guided modules

http://www.thefuntheory.com/piano-staircase

Easy to use in comfort of home, safe, less confrontational

(Female, 25-29, EGM’s, Metro Vic)www.gamblinghelponline.org.au

Significant Other Profile:Chat and Email (n=157)

**p<.01,a sample not sufficient for sig test

Approximately 16% of online clients are Significant Others. They are more often:

Female (73%) Higher proportion than chat**

Aged <30 (47%) Concerned about EGM gambling (66%)

18/20 partners using email for EGM concernsa

Contacting during business hours