From awareness to action: mapping online gambling prevention and treatment research through a social marketing lens

Social marketing interventions have emerged as important approaches for addressing online gambling-related harm, particularly amid the proliferation of digital gambling platforms and sophisticated marketing practices. However, existing bibliometric studies on gambling prevention have paid limited attention to the social marketing dimensions. This study addresses this gap by conducting a bibliometric analysis of 333 peer-reviewed articles selected from 481 Scopus-indexed records using predefined document type, language, publication year, and relevance criteria. Social marketing is operationally defined as the application of marketing principles to influence voluntary behaviours for individual and societal benefit, particularly prevention, harm reduction, consumer protection, and responsible gambling. Using VOSviewer, the study identifies research streams and thematic clusters, highlighting growth since 2005. Bibliographic coupling identified four areas: safer gambling message effectiveness and consumer protection, behavioural addiction mechanisms, industry practices and regulatory responses, and problem gambling epidemiology and behavioural patterns. Co-word analysis revealed three clusters related to responsible gambling campaigns, psychological and population-level vulnerability, and technology-related addiction patterns. The findings reveal an uneven geographic distribution, with research concentrated in English-speaking countries. Persistent gaps remain in cross-cultural prevention, harm-reduction messaging, and the integration of emerging technologies into intervention design. The study provides a knowledge map and identifies future research directions.