A call has been made to move the National Lottery draw to after the 9pm watershed to avoid "exposing underage children to gambling advertising".
The watershed ban ensures the protection of children from exposure to inappropriate programming before 9pm.
It comes after the National Lottery announced in March that the Lotto draw will be broadcast in a new timeslot, just before the 'RTÉ Nine O'Clock News' on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Principal Investigator of the Tobacco, Alcohol and Gambling Research Group at Technological University of the Shannon has said that research has shown that it serves to "normalise" and "sanitise" gambling.
Dr Frank Houghton said that the issue is that the lottery is gambling and this cannot be ignored.
He said researchers looked at just over 200 Lotto draws that took place between 2023 and 2024.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said: "It was really stark. What we found was that almost all of the draws took place either between or just after programming, which was rated either 12 or 12A. And we found that all but one of those draws appeared to take place before the 9pm watershed."
He said it "is exposing underage children to gambling advertising, which we feel is a real problem for two reasons".
Listen back: Calls for National Lottery draw to be moved post-watershed
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"One, because there's a lot of evidence out there which indicates that those who do gamble underage are more likely to become problematic gamblers in later life," he said.
"But also because even the regulator for the National Lottery's own assessments do indicate that ... almost three in ten retailers would actually serve or sell a lottery scratch card to an underage buyer."
He said the fact that the Gambling Act does not apply to the National Lottery, is "a very strange and possibly unique setup in Ireland".
The Gambling Regulation Act passed in 2024 sees private bookmakers face fines for advertising before 9PM but the National Lottery is covered by its own act.
Dr Houghton said that this "contains no such restriction and a major issue for us is just the sheer volume of National Lottery advertising that you see in shops and on the radio and on TV".
He said that there is international evidence "which clearly shows that increased advertising results in higher rates of participation. I see no particular reason on earth why Ireland would be different to that".
"One of our concerns, though, is that the self-regulatory codes of practice which exist in Ireland would appear to prohibit this kind of marketing anyway," he said.
Dr Houghton said the National Lottery Advertising and Promotion Code "clearly says that no advertising should take place in any media which is directed primarily to people under 18 years of age".
"And similarly, if you look at the RTÉ programme content standards, it again very clearly articulates the 9pm watershed," he said.
"To me, it's really obvious. It needs to be moved to after the 9pm news."
Read more: National Lottery to cease production in RTÉ from 11 March
