How do academics, regulators, and treatment providers think that safer gambling messages can be improved?

Safer gambling messages are a common public health intervention for gambling, and yet there is little evidence to support the variety of messages that are in widespread use. This paper thematically analyzed the perspectives of 21 participants–including academics, regulators and treatment providers–regarding the design characteristics of safer-gambling messages with the goal to improve on those already being used. The focus groups were semi-structured and discussed exemplar messages based on five areas of previous gambling research: teaching safer gambling practices, correcting gambling misperceptions, boosting conscious decision making, norm-based messages, and emotional messages. Five themes were supported by the three focus groups, including that messages: may be insufficient to change behavior; should respect the diversity amongst gamblers; should not contribute to gambling stigma; should provide norm-based information thoughtfully; and should trigger only positive and not negative emotions. These findings can be useful in developing messages that are based on themes endorsed by experts as being relevant to the design of effective safer-gambling messages. Generating a pool of messages that are evidence based is likely to improve on current messages, thus serving as a useful public health tool for promoting safer-gambling involvement.