Hayden, L., Newton, G., Carah, N., Tran, Brownbill, A., D. K., Obeid, A., Irving, R.
(2024). How Alcohol and Gambling Companies Target People Most at Risk with Marketing for Addictive
Products on Facebook. Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education: Canberra.
Key Findings
Facebook tags people at risk of harm and trying to reduce their use of alcohol and gambling as interested in these addictive products to target them with advertising.
• Together, 10 people in the study were tagged by Facebook with 89 different alcohol and gambling
related advertising interests.
• One person was tagged with as many as 25 alcohol related advertising interests while another was
tagged with as many as 41 gambling related advertising interests. Alcohol and gambling companies uploaded data on people at risk of harm and trying to reduce their use of alcohol or gambling to fuel targeted marketing on Facebook.
• A total of 201 alcohol and 63 gambling companies uploaded data on 10 people in the study.
• One woman, who was trying to reduce her current high-risk alcohol use, had 123 alcohol
companies upload data about her to target her with marketing. Another woman, who has been
trying over the past 10 years to reduce her alcohol use, had 95 alcohol companies upload data
about her.
• One man, who was currently engaging in high-risk gambling, had 52 gambling companies upload
data about him to target him with advertising. People who are trying to reduce their alcohol use or gambling are constantly faced with advertisements for these addictive products on social media.
• For one woman who was trying to reduce her current high-risk alcohol use, a quarter of the ads
captured from her Facebook were for alcohol.
• For one man who was experiencing gambling harm and has been trying to reduce his gambling
over the past year, almost two thirds of the ads captured from his Facebook were for gambling
and he often saw 15 or more gambling ads in a row.
