People around you – do they matter? An experimental gambling study

Types of gambling: finnish gambling narratives under the lens of systems theory

There seems to be no shortage of gambling and problem gambling typologies. At a closer look, however, previous research identified types of problem gamblers and not of problem gambling. While correct typologies of gamblers are important for developing treatment, they are less useful for harm prevention. The current study uses a system theoretical approach to investigate gambling communication in order to develop a genuine typology of gambling. Snowball sampling of Finnish gamblers resulted in 56 participants, who wrote 48 narratives about their ordinary gambling, 43 narratives about their most remarkable gambling event, and 28 about their worst gambling experience. The approach is informed by systems theory: communication on gambling is understood as a result of the reduction of contingency. Rather than focusing on the meaning of gambling or why people gamble, the analysis investigates what is included and what is excluded to make gambling discussable, i.e., the contextures of gambling. Economic and family/intimate contexture were the most prominent. The latter appeared most often in the most memorable gambling experiences. The economic contexture was more common in narrating ordinary and worst gambling situations. In all, four types of gambling could be identified: genuine monetary gambling, resonating monetary gambling, commensal gambling, and liminal gambling. When comparing the previously identified types of gamblers with the types of gambling discovered in the present study, it becomes obvious that a shift from the gamblers, their background, their personality, and their motives to the gambling activity provides novel insights. The constant appearance of the familial/intimate dimension in the narratives indicates that, beside the financial harms, societal harms also need to be treated as a category of harm in its own right, not just as a consequence of personality disorders, psychological distress, or social deprivation.

Social Presence and Social Facilitation in Gambling: Some Comments on Yokomitsu et al. (2022)

This brief commentary adds to the recent study by paper by Yokomitsu, Kono and Takada (2022). Their study examined social presence in gambling by experimentally investigating the effects of the presence of other people on risky betting among high-risk gamblers. This commentary argues that the paper by Yokomitsu et al. provided a highly selective review on available studies and omitted many of the key studies in the area of social presence and social facilitation in which their findings could have been compared. The commentary also briefly outlines a number of studies that have I co-authored in this area over the past three decades using a variety of different methodologies (e.g., non-participant observation studies, experiments, data mining of account-based tracking data), none of which were mentioned by Yokomitsu et al. despite their clear relevance to this area.

Concurrent Disorders and Decision-Making in Electronic Gaming Machine Gamblers

This study aimed to investigate the self-reported measures of concurrent disorders (stress, social anxiety, anxiety, depression and alcohol use) among electronic gaming machine (EGM) gamblers with varying levels of gambling severity and to examine its relationship to decision-making. This cross-sectional study in New Zealand involved an online survey that utilised validated questionnaires to assess self-reported measures of concurrent disorders and the Iowa gambling task (IGT) to analyse decision-making. The study comprised of active EGM gamblers (n = 153) who were divided into two groups: non-problem gambling (NPG, n = 71) and problem gambling (PG, n = 82) based on the cut-off point of the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS). Multiple logistic regression models were performed to analyse co-occurring disorders separately and simultaneously, and a log-linear model was developed to define the associations between significant variables. The first model showed a strong correlation between gambling severity and measures for depression (p < 0.01), anxiety (p < 0.05), stress (p < 0.05) and alcohol use (p < 0.01), however only depression (p < 0.05) and alcohol use (p < 0.01) remained significant in the second model. Further, no association between social anxiety scores and problem gambling was found in this sample of EGM gamblers in both models. On the IGT, EGM gamblers in the PG group performed significantly worse. Further, the presence of poor decision-making was more pronounced with higher depression scores (p < 0.01) across both NPG and PG groups and higher alcohol use scores (p < 0.05) scores in the PG group. The presence of high levels of co-occurring disorders and its link to poor decision-making are important considerations in the treatment paradigm of EGM problem gamblers.

Does Individual Gambling Behavior Vary across Gambling Venues with Differing Numbers of Terminals? An Empirical Real-World Study using Player Account Data

Research examining gambling behavior via experiments, self-report, and/or observation presents many methodical challenges particularly in relation to objectivity. However, the use of player account-based gambling data provides purely objective data. Based on this real-world data, the primary aim of the present study was to examine gambling behavior in gambling venues with different numbers of gambling terminals (i.e., venues with one terminal; 2–5 terminals; 6–10 terminals; 11–16 terminals). Player account-based gambling data aggregated over a year (2015) amounting to 153,379 observations within 93,034 individual gamblers (males = 74%; mean age = 44.1, SD = 16.4 years) were analyzed. Gambling frequency was highest in venues with 2–5 terminals (54.5%) and lowest in venues with 11–16 terminals (1.6%). Approximately half of the sample (52.5%) gambled in only one venue category, with the majority (81.5%) preferring venues with 2–5 terminals present. Only 0.8% of the sample gambled in all four venue categories. Compared to venues with one terminal, venues with two or more terminals were associated with gamblers placing more bets, and spending more time and money per session. However, gamblers had higher losses (albeit small) in venues with one terminal compared to venues with 2–5 terminals. No differences in net outcome were found between venues with one terminal and those with 6–10 and 11–16 terminals. Overall, the present study demonstrates that in the natural gambling environment, gambling behavior is reinforced in venues with multiple terminals.