Resist or comply: Promoting responsible gambling among youth

Persuasion models that are currently used in prevention campaigns to fight gambling addiction largely ignore two facts. First, prevention campaign objectives compete with those of gambling corporations and, second, commercial advertising budgets are much larger than those of prevention. We propose a theoretical model that takes into account these two facts. Our goal is to propose another way of conceptualizing prevention in terms of resistance to gambling advertising appeals rather than persuasion. This model is based on the inoculation theory. It explains why and under which conditions message-induced resistance to gambling ads may be more efficient than an awareness-raising message on gambling-related risks.