Structural or dispositional? An experimental investigation of the experience of winning in social casino games (and impulsivity) on subsequent gambling behaviors

Offering small tangible rewards within social casino games increases in-play bets but does not impact real-money gambling

Many video games incorporate gambling-like elements into their design (and vice versa). Social casino games - a type of video game that mimics gambling activities-are one such example. In the current experimental research, we examined whether offering tangible rewards (i.e., rewards with value outside the game) in a social casino game was associated with increased social casino game play and subsequent gambling. Participants (N = 213, M_age = 36.5, 55.3% female) were recruited from CloudResearch. They were randomly assigned to either a reward condition (n = 109) in which, following a week of social casino game play, participants could trade in their virtual credits for a bonus, or a control condition in which the possibility of reward was not presented (n = 104). Following the week of play, all participants were then provided with an opportunity to gamble in an online roulette game with their study compensation. Participants in the reward condition placed more bets and bet higher credit amounts in the social casino game than participants in the control condition. In contrast, no differences were found between the two groups regarding their decision to gamble with their remuneration. Participants who elected to gamble reported higher problem gambling severity and gambling-related cravings. There were no differences in impulsivity. These results suggest that offering tangible rewards in social casino games may increase social casino game play but not necessarily the decision to gamble with real-world money.