Kansspelautoriteit's Gokstop Wins Bronze Effie for Social Impact
Kansspelautoriteit has been awarded a bronze Effie in Europe’s social category for its “Pak je leven weer op, neem een gokstop” (Get Your Life Back, Stop Gambling) campaign.
LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE:The Netherlands Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit, or KSA), working with creative agency FCB Amsterdam, received the accolade for a digital-first effort that reframed responsible gambling around recovery and agency rather than fear. The Effie jury praised the work for addressing a serious social problem with "keen insight, a respectful approach, and modest resources," calling the campaign "impressive" and noting how it highlighted that responsible gambling can mean making an active choice to quit.
Effie Europe – part of the global Effie network that has recognised effective marketing across the continent since 1996 – also emphasises the role of effectiveness in marketing. As Effie put it, "Our mission is to lead, inspire, and champion both the practice and the practitioners of marketing effectiveness across the continent". Globally, the Effie Awards have been viewed since 1968 as a benchmark for campaigns that demonstrably move consumer behaviour and business outcomes.
Campaign Results and Strategy
KSA’s campaign zeroed in on three primary groups in the online gambling ecosystem: frequent online gamblers, people experiencing gambling harm, and their relatives. Rather than leading with graphic accounts of loss, the campaign used everyday vignettes – a guitar, a party, a football match, Christmas dinner – to convey the simpler, human aim of reclaiming ordinary life.
The eight-week digital push operated on a relatively modest budget of just over EUR 100,000. Performance metrics reported by KSA and FCB Amsterdam show meaningful movement: awareness of Gokstop among frequent gamblers climbed from 17% to 29%, and awareness among those self-identified as problem gamblers rose from 41% to 50%. Stated willingness to register almost doubled in target groups, and more than 3,600 people unsubscribed from gambling services during the campaign window – far exceeding typical sign-up rates for similar interventions.
These outcomes suggest the campaign achieved both reach and conversion. Its mix of targeted creative, clear calls to action (to register with the Gokstop self-exclusion service) and tightly focused media spend delivered measurable behaviour change. The jury highlighted that the campaign's success lay in its clarity and human-centred storytelling rather than shock tactics, and that the modest budget made the results especially notable.
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For regulators and operators across Europe, the campaign offers practical lessons. First, messaging that foregrounds recovery and returning to everyday life can be more motivating for people contemplating change than messages framed solely around loss. Second, mixed digital targeting that reaches both at-risk players and their families can raise registration and self-exclusion rates efficiently.
From a policy standpoint, the KSA’s win may encourage other national authorities – such as the UK Gambling Commission and regional public-health bodies – to prioritise useable, empathetic communications and to allocate modest but well-targeted budgets for behaviour-driven campaigns. The measurable uplift in awareness and unsubscribes underscores the value of setting clear, trackable KPIs when funding responsible-gambling work.
Industry observers noted the campaign’s scalability: a focused creative idea paired with disciplined digital execution can be reproduced across markets while adjusted for language and cultural nuance. The Effie jury’s recognition serves both as an endorsement of the campaign’s effectiveness and as a reminder that public-interest marketing can achieve strong behavioural outcomes without large ad spends.
As regulators and charities weigh future investments in harm reduction, the KSA/FCB Amsterdam example provides an evidence point for strategies that prioritise dignity, agency and practical help – showing that prompting people to take concrete steps, such as joining a self-exclusion register, can be an effective route to reducing gambling harm.
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