The launch of Macau’s “Responsible Gaming Promotions” in 2009 has seen awareness of responsible gambling among local residents increase from 16.2% at the time to 64.4% in 2020, according to Director of the Social Welfare Bureau (IAS), Hon Wai.
Details on the effectiveness of the program, a joint initiative between the IAS and the Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming at the University of Macau, were revealed during a special sharing session at the university on Wednesday to celebrate the program’s 12th year.
With the theme of this year’s RG Promotions being “Lost Control, Lose Family”, Hon said the IAS had answered over 900 calls to its 24-hour Online Gambling Counselling Services hotline and handled over 1,600 online counselling cases between January and September.
He also said the participation in gaming by Macau residents has decreased from 59.2% before the promotions began in 2007 to 40.9% in 2019, and prevalence of problem of gambling from a peak of 6% to just 0.8% last year.
Discussing the campaign by IAS and UMAC in 2020, Hon said, “Through family-focused responsible gambling promotions, the campaign aims to further consolidate the family education function, strengthen the family protection role, and improve the efficiency of problem gambling prevention and treatment.
“Next year, we will launch a new project, ‘Responsible Gambling Performance Indicators’, to set standards in and scrutinize the responsible gambling performance and related equipment of social service agencies and gambling operators in Macau, with a view to promoting the healthy and orderly development of the gaming industry, continuously improving the efficiency of responsible gambling efforts and minimizing the social and the family impact caused by problem gambling.”
