Mindy Muller, president and CEO of CDP, said it is estimated that more than 18,500 Butler County residents are gambling at moderate or high risk.
The campaign used the buzz brought on by March Madness and included posters, brochures, billboards, movie ads and ads on the message boards at the county's four BMV locations.
“According to surveys done exclusively in Butler County, we’re seeing that youth under the age of 18 are more likely to participate in high-risk gambling activities than adults,” said Lori Higgins, executive vice president of EP.
Both groups she said wanted the March campaign to drive problem gamblers to get help and reach a website, www.playitsafeohio.org, set up to make that happen.
“While the problem gambling helpline didn’t receive a large influx of calls statewide in March, there was an increase in the amount of gamblers stating that they have had a problem for one to three years,” Tristyn Eppley, a gambling prevention specialist for EP, said. “This is a shift from previous months, therefore the campaigns seem to be drawing the attention of early problem gamblers more so now.”
There also was an increase in the person with a gambling problem calling for themselves, opposed to a family or friend calling on behalf of someone with a gambling problem, according to Eppley.
She added that Butler County had the seventh most calls in the state to the problem gambling helpline falling just behind Montgomery and Hamilton counties.
“Middletown provided 64 percent of the calls in Butler County,” Eppley said.
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament has become a social event with betting on the side, Higgins said.
Brackets have actually become socially accepted, just listen in line at the grocery or the bank. March Madness brackets are portrayed as good, innocent fun,” she said. “For many, that’s all that it is. For others, it is multiple brackets, pools and stakes of all sorts. The barrage of opportunities and normalization makes this risky business for some.”
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