Building a
New Prevention Approach

Massachusetts Center of Excellence on Problem Gambling Prevention provides a range of capacity building services to support local communities in understanding, addressing, and implementing projects focused on problem gambling prevention.

About the Problem

Gambling becomes problem gambling when it negatively affects a person’s life or the lives of their family, friends, or co-workers. Some populations have a higher risk for developing problem gambling, including youth, men, and people of color.

Problem gambling has a high co-morbidity with substance misuse and mental health conditions, this means that a person often has all three conditions at the same time. Problem gambling is also associated with poor health and suicide.

Prevention Approaches

Prevention plays an important role in reducing the harmful effects of problem gambling. Some effective prevention practices include the following:

Change the conditions in the environment
Support the development of knowledge and skills
Ensure prevention efforts are tailored to a population’s level of risk
Ensure prevention efforts are integrated into existing public health prevention efforts

Problem gambling prevention approaches include the Photovoice Project, the Ambassador Project and the Community Health Worker Pilot Project.

Engaging the community acknowledges the expertise that communities most impacted by public health problems have and the importance of their knowledge being integrated into all levels of planning and development.

Massachusetts
Photovoice Project

Massachusetts
Ambassador Project

Community Health
Worker Pilot Project

Training

"The presenters were open and honest. I appreciated the skill in which they approached the difficult topics like race, privilege, and today's current events."

“I never knew that gambling could be dangerous for anyone. It’s important that we are educating youth about underage gambling, just like we educate them about alcohol and drugs.”

“Amazing training that allowed us to process in the moment! Developing an intersectional lens is essential to address problem gambling alongside substance misuse and trauma!”

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Building aNew Prevention Approach