Samaritans released the first best practice guide for the gambling industry, aimed at assisting gambling companies in understanding and implementing practical measures to avoid gambling-related suicide.

Samaritans Guideline for Suicide Prevention

There is a strong connection between gambling and suicide, according to research.

Suicidal thoughts and attempts are more common in people who encounter gambling-related harm than in the general population. To help combat the epidemic, Samaritans has embarked on a project to better understand gambling as a suicide risk factor and what can be done to avoid gambling-related suicide.

With the gambling industry eager to do more to discourage gambling-related harms and suicide, Samaritans set industry standards against which gambling businesses can be held accountable, and is asking all gambling businesses to follow its principles as a minimum to show their commitment to suicide prevention.

Head of Policy at Samaritans, Mubeen Bhutta, said: “Suicide is preventable and we know different industries need to address specific challenges in order to have effective suicide prevention practices in place.”

Bhutta continued by stating that since there is a strong link between gambling and suicide, determining the improvements that need to be made in the gambling community to avoid suicide is an important part of Samaritans’ work.

Samaritans is proud to release these industry recommendations and hope that all gambling companies will collaborate with them to do more to avoid gambling-related suicide.

“Suicide prevention is everyone’s business. There is still much more that needs to be done within the wider gambling environment to reduce the risk of gambling-related harm, and to ensure that everyone can get the support they need,” said Bhutta.

Operators who obey the recommendations are taking a step in the right direction toward strengthening suicide prevention in the gambling industry, and Samaritans will continue to advocate for action to help minimize gambling-related harms in the future.

Samaritans Guideline and Steps

The industry guidelines developed by Samaritans are unique in that they are centered on suicide prevention and were designed to complement existing industry resources aimed at reducing the risk of gambling-related harm.

How to provide a strong suicide prevention strategy to protect consumers and employees, how to use harm prevention to drive marketing messages, how to use data to help deter suicide, and how to interact sensitively with customers in distress are only a few of the recommendations.

Samaritans created these recommendations in collaboration with a broad range of partners, including individuals who have lived through trauma, other charities, health and support services, and others participating in the gambling industry.