Researchers criticise Irish National Lottery adverts on on YouTube over appeal to children

Researchers claim National Lottery adds “lure children” with talking toys, tyre-swings treehouses, and games like rock-paper-scissors.

Ireland.- A new study has suggested that more than 20 per cent of the Irish National Lottery’s advertisements on YouTube contain imagery that appeals to young audiences. Academics from the Technical University of the Shannon, Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Limerick and University College Cork examined 127 Lotto advertisements and found campaigns featuring talking soft toys and anthropomorphic machines, treehouses, waterslides wooden toys, and playground games.

The study also found that 6.3 per cent of the adverts featured children directly.

Dr Frank Houghton, lead author and principal investigator at the Tobacco, Alcohol & Gambling (TAG) Research Group at Technological University of the Shannon, said “more robust oversight” of National Lottery advertising was “urgently required.”

“The National Lottery is a form of gambling that we all collectively pretend is not actually gambling. National Lottery advertising is everywhere, and it is disturbingly child-friendly,” he said.

Co-author professor Anne Campbell of Queen’s University Belfast added: “More controls on the timing, placement and content of Lotto advertising are essential. For example, children should never appear in a lotto advertisement.”

This paper is the fourth in a series examining National Lottery practices. Previous studies highlighted Halloween-themed ads targeting children, weaknesses in online age verification, and regulator reports that omit addiction risks.

Houghton called the findings “wholly unacceptable”. “We identified 127 adverts, and what we found was really quite an alarming level of child-friendly material. There’s absolutely no reason why you should ever feature children in a gambling advert,” he said.

Beyond advertising content, Houghton also raised concerns about possible regulatory conflicts of interest due to its dual role.

“The Office of the Regulator of the National Lottery is in moral jeopardy. They are supposed to protect players but also safeguard the National Lottery’s financial success. You cannot do both effectively.”

“It’s incompatible. You’ve got the same office trying to protect gamblers while also raising funds for the Lottery,” he added.

The research comes amid growing scrutiny of gambling advertising in Ireland. The Irish Gambling Regulation Act of 2024 bans gambling advertising on television and radio between 5.30am and 9pm and introduces a range of other limitations but not the complete bans that some senators had been pushing for.  

However, the Gambling Regulation Act does not apply to the National Lottery. The researchers suggest the legislation should be expanded to cover the lottery that child-friendly Lotto advertising represents a serious public health issue and should be removed from YouTube immediately.

A National Lottery spokesperson stressed that the adverts referenced in the study were historical, many of them being launched before the current licence period, the creation of a dedicated regulator and a new Advertising Code of Practice.”

“Today, all National Lottery advertising is subject to a comprehensive and multi‑layered review process to ensure it complies with the Advertising Code of Practice,” the lottery said.

For other forms of gambling, the new Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland handles any complaints related to alleged breaches of the TV and radio watershed and other obligations under the new legislation. Meanwhile, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) handles complaints related to breaches of the ASA code of standards but not related to the Gambling Regulation Act.

Ivana Bacik, leader of the Irish Labour Party, continues to support a proposal to ban all gambling advertisements in Ireland.