Irish Men Encountering 'Dizzying' Number of Gambling Ads on Social Media - 28/04/2026

Men In Ireland are exposed to a “dizzying” number of advertisements for gambling on social media, new research has suggested.Researchers from University of Cambridge and Munster Technological University, Cork, said gambling companies are reaching young men, the group most likely to exhibit problem gambling behaviour, on social media at more than double the rate of women.The researchers looked at 411 advertisements from 88 gambling operators in Ireland, and found that young men reached 2.3 times more than women across Meta platforms — such as Facebook and Instagram — even if the adverts did not directly target young men.We were joined on The Agenda this morning by journalist Declan Lynch, who also wrote “Tony 10”, which is out now on audiobook, 8 years after original publication… Which highlights how long this problem is going onIn his book, Declan delves into what happened when a former postmaster from Carlow, racked up a €10m turnover in his Paddy Power online account, when he was arrested for stealing €1.75m of his spending from his employers, An Post. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.