Every fourth child between the ages of 13 and 17 in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina plays one of the games of chance, and the citizens of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina left about 13 billion BAM in betting shops in the period from 2016 to 2023.
In order to prevent this problem and reduce the number of children and young people who gamble, the Association for the Prevention of Addiction NARKO-NE implements the preventive program ‘Who actually wins?’ in secondary schools in Sarajevo Canton and Tuzla Canton.
Sanela Pekić from the NARKO-NE Association at the conference held today in Sarajevo pointed out that the evaluation of the implementation of the Program in KS and TK showed a high efficiency in raising and strengthening protective factors among students, especially in the context of increasing the level of correct knowledge about gambling and the industry of games of chance.
The key idea of the universal prevention program is to act before risky behavior manifests itself, and a large number of students expressed their willingness to recommend participation in the Program to their friends, which suggests that they recognized the positive aspects of the Program and consider it useful for others.
Although the law prohibits the operation of betting shops at a distance of less than one hundred meters from schools and religious buildings, in practice this is almost never applied.
Although this is a big problem, Professor Neven Ricijaš, one of the authors of the Program in Croatia, emphasized that we should not ignore online gambling, which will increase in the coming period.
Ricijaš further states that women are more inclined to gamble online, in contrast to men who are more inclined to gamble in casinos and betting shops.
Gambling addiction, unlike addiction to psychoactive substances, is a hidden addiction and unfortunately, the problem is often discovered too late, and 10 percent of the population that starts gambling will develop an addiction.
Marko Romić, a trauma psychology specialist who works with addicted individuals on a daily basis, points out that pathological gamblers always hide their problem. Wives, mothers, and daughters are the ones who most often seek help for their loved ones, and recently the number of women reporting gambling addiction has also increased.
Due to all of the above, NARKO-NE will in the coming period strive to include a larger number of schools in BiH in the prevention of gambling among young people.
Preventive programs should be comprehensive, include all significant target groups, and be implemented in multiple environments simultaneously (school, media, but also family, workplace, legislation).
Prevention must be implemented continuously, planned, and systematically, and not through one-off ad hoc activities that can cause more harm than good for children and young people, which is very often the case.
Who actually wins? is the only scientifically proven gambling prevention program in Europe, and NARKO-NE, with the support of the Institute for Youth Development KULT, has taken over the license for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Association for Addiction Prevention Narko-Ne announced.
Ajka Rovčanin from the Institute commented on the importance of joint cooperation in solving this problem, and said that schools play a major role in preventing gambling and betting, because the educational system provides a good foundation, along with the strong influence of the family.
