1. Divide the group into small teams.
2. Give each team a paper with the outline of a body and ask them to brainstorm and write down how gambling could negatively impact people’s lives,151 both in the short and long term. To do so, encourage them to think about the effects on each of these different areas:
   • emotions and relationships;
   • physical and mental health;
   • achievements at school and work;
   • police records and travelling opportunities;
   • financial situation.
3. After they have discussed their initial thoughts, you could give them some short scenarios to help them brainstorm some more ideas. Encourage participants to think outside the box, beyond just “they’ll lose their money and be sad”.
4. Ask the teams to share their thoughts and ideas with the whole group and discuss all together.
5. Consider asking the group(s) to imagine what might happen next in those scenarios, leading to a range of possible conclusions, some positive, others less so, for each. Questions for discussion might include: How might the principal character(s) feel at each point? What might help them manage the situation more competently? etc.
6. Highlight the key points of the discussion, and how experiencing a problem with gambling is linked to other issues and risk-taking behaviours (e.g. from short-term stress to long-term relationship problems and even suicide).

Alternative options:

Instead of giving the same scenarios to all the teams, you could give different scenarios to each one of them.

In some cases, it may be beneficial to encourage the young people to generate their own scenarios.

It may be useful to combine this activity with the Gambling Harms Brainstorm game.

At the end of this activity, you could facilitate a discussion on where young people could go for help and support.