Second Edition of Responsible Gaming Awareness Week

The Fondation Mise sur toi Launches a Sensitization Offensive

Montréal, September 14, 2007 – For the second consecutive year, the Fondation Mise sur toi is forging ahead in its efforts to combat compulsive gambling with its Responsible Gaming Awareness Week, to be held from September 17 to September 23. In actual fact, the Fondation’s offensive will extend throughout the fall season via an extensive 13-week information campaign. Targeting Québecers throughout the province, the initiative represents an investment of $2 million. In addition to its mass media component, the campaign will include the launch of a Web site and the distribution of such information materials as the 8/8 Your Player Profile in 8 Questions pamphlet, which helps players identify their gaming behaviour. Launched in February 2006, the Fondation Mise sur toi’s first awareness campaign proved to be a major success generating over 5,500 calls to its Help and Referral telephone hotline, which marked the greatest increase in calls received over the past seven years. It was the exceptional success of that initial campaign that spurred the Fondation to repeat the exercise this fall.

Under the theme, Mise sur toi (Bet on yourself), the campaign will run from September 17 through November 18 on the major English and French television networks, several community television stations, as well as over the cybermedia and in the province’s dailies and certain weeklies. The campaign will also include posters mounted in restaurants and bars, casinos and bingo halls. Four popular personalities have been recruited to serve as campaign spokespersons - Ellen David and Harry Standjofski for the English messages, and Mireille Deyglun and Denis Bouchard for the French ads.

"Responsible Gaming Awareness Week is an opportunity for the general public to learn more about their own gaming habits and about the initiatives the Fondation Mise sur toi and Loto-Québec are taking to promote healthy gaming behaviour," explains Nicole Beaulieu, Managing Director of the Fondation. "I would like to invite everyone to visit our misesurtoi.ca Web site, which serves as a valuable storehouse of information and tools for those who wish to maintain healthy gaming habits or who are simply interested in the phenomenon of compulsive gambling." Among the various resources to be found on the site are a Web version of the 8/8 Your Player Profile in 8 Questions pamphlet and a complete list of support centres that offer their services free of charge across the province.

A Productive and Original Partnership

The Fondation Mise sur toi is also present on the Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc Campus’ Web site, associated with the Virginie television program and aimed, among other things, at sensitizing Web surfers to gaming behaviour among young people. This site, as well as a special scholarship fund, is made possible in partnership with various companies and organizations, including the Québec Ministry of Education.

Numerous sensitization activities are to be organized for the 6,800 or so employees of Loto-Québec and its subsidiaries during Responsible Gaming Awareness Week, as well as for the Corporation’s business partners. Thus, the initiative is a particularly effective means of relaying information to the general public in view of the fact that the majority of the audience targeted by these activities are in direct contact with the Corporation’s clientele.

In parallel with this public sensitization effort, the Fondation has recently implemented its second Au Centre du hasard responsible gaming information and awareness centre at the Casino du Lac-Leamy. Since its opening in June 2007, the new Centre has welcomed more than 6,000 visitors. For its part, the Casino de Montréal’s Centre du hasard has received 35,000 visitors since its inauguration in February 2006.

Created in 2002, the Fondation Mise sur toi’s mission is threefold — to promote healthy gaming behaviour, to prevent the harmful effects of compulsive gambling, and to protect those who are vulnerable. Through its support of and affiliation with the Fondation Mise sur toi, Loto-Québec is consolidating its commitment to the responsible management of gaming while encouraging reflection on healthy gaming habits.

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Information:

Jean-Pierre Roy
Media Relations Department
514-499-5151

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