Over 1.3 million lottery tickets are sold daily in Moldova and supporters of a ban on gambling advertising say most of them are bought by low-income people. “Gambling creates victims and addiction, while this industry is being promoted through aggressive marketing and publicity campaigns”, argue the sponsors of the bill, which today passed the first reading in Parliament.

PAS lawmaker Dumitru Alaiba, one of the authors, said that whereas in 2017 lottery ticket sales totaled 3.4 million lei, in 2020 they amounted to 613 million lei, skyrocketing to 2.6 billion lei in just eight months of this year. And whereas 425,000 tickets were sold in 2017, in eight months of this year their number amounted to 328 million.

“These numbers tell us of a serious addiction problem with this industry, an addiction to gambling. This is a growing catastrophe. The first thing that fuels this addiction is advertising, which is aggressive indeed”, declared Alaiba.

The ban covers advertising for all forms of gambling, including lotteries, raffles, sports and non-sports betting. This includes adverts on television, in print press, in movie theaters, in video and online content, through mobile networks, on billboards, transit advertising, or via mail.

The bill is to pass its second reading before it becomes a law.