Irish Lotto logo under scrutiny as experts call for change over 'child-friendly' look
Calls for National Lottery to change their logo and reduce advertising due to alarming new research
A team of gambling control researchers across Ireland are calling for the National Lottery to develop a revised logo to both replace its current child friendly image and reduce their advertising.
The researchers’ concerns are based on the high level of recognition of the logo by National School children aged as young as seven.
The National Lottery Logo features an anthropomorphic smiling star, that even pirouettes and winks in various adverts.
In their research, which involved 671 children from 9 National Schools, the researchers found that over 85% of 12-year-olds could identify and name the Lotto logo.
Even more alarmingly, even amongst seven-year-olds the figure was almost 40%. Roughly 40% of 12-year-olds also knew the Lotto tagline (‘It could be you’) without being prompted.
The research paper, which has just been published in the journal ADDICTA- The Turkish Journal on Addiction, involved a team of researchers from TUS, QUB and UL.
Dr Frank Houghton, from the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) who led the project, stated “If you look at the first Irish lotto logo, it looks like a push button keypad from an old telecom public phone.
“The current logo is far more child friendly. Unfortunately, this means that like so many other aspects of lotto marketing it is very attractive to children.
“They need to seriously rethink their advertising strategy, including consciously reducing their marketing”.
A co-author of the article, Prof. Anne Campbell, from the Queen’s University of Belfast (QUB), notes that “We have a real issue here. Children as young as seven should not be recognising the logo of a gambling firm.
“We must always remember this; the lotto is gambling. Lotto scratchcards are a form of gambling”.
Dr Houghton also states that “Similar research to this type of logo recognition study examining the addictions industries stretches back to early 1990s studies on Camel cigarette advertising featuring Joe Camel cartoons”.
Logo recognition is a serious issue because a crucial building block in marketing is brand recognition.
International research demonstrates that higher levels of marketing exposure are correlated with higher levels of subsequent use.
The 2024 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) found that 32% of 15-16 year-old children had gambled for money in the previous 12 months.
Research by the Office for the Regulator of the National Lottery found that approximately 3 out of 10 retailers would sell a National Lottery product to an underage gambler.
Underage gambling is linked to problematic gambling in later life.
Previous research by the research team has published journal articles on various aspects of child-friendly National Lottery marketing.
This has included their use of child-friendly imagery on their web-site last Halloween and child-friendly elements of Lotto ads on the National Lottery YouTube site.
More recently, their research has criticised the Lotto draw being held before the 9pm broadcasting watershed.
Other research has identified deficits in the Lotto’s online age-verification system.Dr Frank Houghton has worked in Public Health in Ireland, New Zealand and the US, and is Principal Investigator of the Tobacco, Alcohol & Gambling (TAG) Research Group at TUS.
Prof. Anne Campbell MBE is Professor (Emeritus) of substance use at Queen's University Belfast, and Chair of UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) Harm Reduction, Recovery and Treatment Committee.
The full research paper on this research can be found here:https://addicta.com.tr/article/view/500/876