A recent analysis by Cambridge University on Meta's platform gambling ads has revealed a startling data gap. The research team tracked 411 ads placed by 88 licensed gambling operators in Ireland from March 2024 to February 2025, finding that male accounts were reached 12.69 million times, while female accounts only 5.45 million times, a ratio of 2.3:1. More notably, although 91 of these 411 ads explicitly targeted males, none targeted females alone, but even in those ads set to target "all genders," Meta's delivery algorithm still heavily favored male users. Dr. Elena Petrovskaya, the lead author of the study from the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Cambridge University, put it bluntly—companies just throw ads on social media, no matter how they set them, and the end reach is still those young male groups known from other studies to be at the highest risk of gambling harm.
The 25-34 age group accounts for nearly sixty percent of the reach, with a single ad covering 26% of Ireland's population
Breaking it down by age, the 25-34 age group makes up the largest segment of reach, about 6.25 million accounts, accounting for 33.9% of the total; the 35-44 age group follows closely, reaching about 4.7 million accounts, accounting for 25.5%. Together, the young and middle-aged groups from 25 to 44 years old occupy nearly sixty percent of the total ad reach. This distribution aligns highly with Ireland's existing gambling behavior data—64.5% of the population has participated in gambling activities, about 3.3% belong to the high-risk gambling group, and the dangerous gambling behavior ratio of males aged 25-34 is as high as 1.3%, far exceeding the 0.2% of females of the same age.
The report also disclosed a highly impactful case: just one Betfair ad reached about 1.32 million unique accounts, equivalent to about 26% of Ireland's total population of 5.15 million. The top five most viewed ads together reached about 3.69 million accounts. These figures are particularly striking in a small-population country like Ireland, and researchers unreservedly described the scale of ad exposure as "dizzying." The study also found that sports-themed ads, primarily football, are a significant driver of gender disparity, naturally attracting a higher proportion of male user interactions, thereby amplifying the algorithm's bias effect.
Research baseline before the new regulatory framework implementation
This data collection window just ended before the full implementation of Ireland's "2024 Gambling Regulation Act" in March 2025, making this study a key policy baseline for measuring the actual effects of the new regulatory framework. The new law introduces stricter advertising restrictions, including a gambling ad watershed period from 5:30 AM to 9 PM on broadcast and on-demand audiovisual services, and limits gambling ads on social media and video platforms to only those users who follow licensed operators' accounts. Dr. Deidre Leahy from Cork Institute of Technology emphasized that subsequent research is crucial for assessing the actual execution effects of the new law. The research team also urged regulatory authorities to continuously use transparency tools like the Meta ad library for law enforcement supervision to prevent the circumvention of illegal ads.
This release coincides with a recent report by the UK's cross-party gambling reform group, which identified gambling ads as a critical public health issue during a key window period. Cambridge University's research provides a quantitative reference from a neighboring market for the entire British Isles' advertising regulatory direction.
PASA official website continues to track the academic forefront of gambling ad regulation and audience protection in Europe, noting that this Ireland-based study, conducted under the EU's Digital Services Act's mandatory transparency data, provides a replicable advertising monitoring methodology for other EU member states.
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This article is from "PASA-Global iGaming Leaders," a gambling industry news channel: https://t.me/pasa_news
Original in-depth gambling channel: https://t.me/gamblingdeep
Free data reports: @pasa_research
PASA Matrix: @pasa002_bot
PASA official website: https://www.pasa.news
