Gambling ads on social media reach more than twice as many men as women: study
Cambridge researchers used Meta’s EU-mandated Ad Library to quantify gambling ad exposure in Ireland — finding structural over-reach to the highest-risk demographic even without deliberate targeting.
What Matters
- 411 ads from 88 licensed Irish operators reached 12.6M male accounts vs. 5.4M female — 2.3× ratio — even when ads were set to “all genders.”
- Ages 25–34 absorbed 33%+ of all impressions; Irish men in that cohort have a 1.3% problem gambling rate vs. 0.2% for women.
- A single Betfair ad reached 1.32M unique accounts — 26% of Ireland’s entire population.
- Ireland’s Gambling Regulation Act 2024 (March 2025) restricts social media gambling ads to opted-in followers of licensed operators; UK, Australia, US have no equivalent.
- [HN: @nemomarx] Notes surprise the ratio is only 2:1 — reportedly 98% of online problem gamblers are male, implying even 2.3× may understate targeting efficiency.
