Abstract
As a response to significant adolescent gambling involvement, a Croatian team of researchers and practitioners developed a universal, comprehensive, evidence-based youth gambling prevention program called “Who Really Wins?”. This study presents the results on its short-term effectiveness following the first national implementation in 18 Croatian cities, with a total of 629 high school students (66.5% male) who completed the program. A design with two measurement sessions (pre-test and post-test) was used to explore the short-term effects of the program on gambling-related knowledge and cognition, frequency of gambling, and various socio-emotional skills. The results showed significant effects when it comes to knowledge, cognitive distortions, and the frequency of sports betting and playing lottery games. Furthermore, the program had no harmful effects on any of the measured variables. The results are interpreted in terms of methodological challenges in measuring effects, possible improvements of the program, and implications for future evaluation research.
Highlights
As a response to significant adolescent gambling involvement, a Croatian team of researchers and practitioners developed a universal, comprehensive, evidence-based youth gambling prevention program called “Who Really Wins?”
The high gambling participation of Croatian adolescents is confirmed by the European ESPAD survey, which found that 26.5%
The findings highlight that the impacts of the program are most apparent in terms of gamblingrelated knowledge and cognitive distortions, while effects on socio-emotional skills are limited and indicate the need for the evaluation of long-term effects
Summary
As a response to significant adolescent gambling involvement, a Croatian team of researchers and practitioners developed a universal, comprehensive, evidence-based youth gambling prevention program called “Who Really Wins?”. Rates of problem gambling in the adult population are significant, ranging from 0.12% to 3.4% in Europe and from 0.12% to 5.8% worldwide [16], but research continuously shows that special attention should be paid to the adolescent population Due to their developmental characteristics (tendency of risk-taking behaviour, short-term planning, identity formation, resistance to authority, increased reward-seeking, etc.) [13,17,18,19], they stand out as a particular risk group for developing adverse gambling-related consequences, such as mental health or family problems, school problems, disturbed interpersonal relationships, compulsive gambling behaviour, and, the most serious consequence, the development of a gambling addiction [13,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30].
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