Should adverts for social casino games be covered by gambling regulations?

by David Sutcliffe 24/05/2017

Notably, nearly 90 percent of the advertisements contained no responsible or problem gambling language, despite the gambling-like content.

by David Sutcliffe 24/05/2017

Lord of the Rings slot machines at the Flamingo, image by jenneze (Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0). Unlike gambling played for real money, “social casino games” generally have no monetary prizes.

Social casino gaming, which simulates gambling games on a social platform such as Facebook, is a nascent but rapidly growing industry—social casino game revenues grew 97 percent between 2012 and 2013, with a USD$3.5 billion market size by the end of 2015. Unlike gambling played for real money, social casino games generally have no monetary prizes and are free-to-play, although they may include some optional monetised features. The size of the market and users’ demonstrated interest in gambling-themed activities mean that social casino gamers are an attractive market for many gambling operators, and several large international gambling companies have merged with social casino game operators. Some operators consider the games to be a source of additional revenue in jurisdictions where online gambling is largely illegal, or a way to attract new customers to a land-based gambling venue. Hybrid models are also emerging, with the potential for tangible rewards for playing social casino games. This merging of gaming and gambling means that many previously established boundaries are becoming blurred, and at many points, the two are indistinguishable. However, content analysis of game content and advertising can help researchers, industry, and policymakers better understand how the two entertainment forms overlap. In their Policy & Internet article “Gambling Games on Social Platforms: How Do Advertisements for Social Casino Games Target Young Adults?”, Brett Abarbanel, Sally M. Gainsbury, Daniel King, Nerilee Hing, and Paul H. Delfabbro undertake a content analysis of 115 social casino gaming advertisements captured by young adults during their regular Internet use. They find advertisement imagery typically features images likely to appeal to young adults, with message themes including a glamorising and normalisation of gambling. Notably, nearly 90 percent of the advertisements contained no responsible or problem gambling language, despite the gambling-like content. Gambling advertisements currently face much stricter restrictions on exposure and distribution than do social casino game advertisements: despite the latter containing much gambling-themed content designed to attract consumers.…

Health, Wellbeing

Is internet gaming as addictive as gambling? (no, suggests a new study)

by David Sutcliffe 04/11/2016

New research suggests that very few of those who play internet-based video games have symptoms suggesting they may be addicted.

by David Sutcliffe 04/11/2016

New research by Andrew Przybylski (OII, Oxford University), Netta Weinstein (Cardiff University), and Kou Murayama (Reading University) published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that very few of those who play internet-based video games have symptoms suggesting they may be addicted. The article also says that gaming, though popular, is unlikely to be as addictive as gambling. Two years ago the APA identified a critical need for good research to look into whether internet gamers run a risk of becoming addicted and asked how such an addiction might be diagnosed properly. To the authors’ knowledge, these are the first findings from a large-scale project to produce robust evidence on the potential new problem of “internet gaming disorder”. The authors surveyed 19,000 men and women from nationally representative samples from the UK, the United States, Canada and Germany, with over half saying they had played internet games recently. Out of the total sample, 1% of young adults (18-24 year olds) and 0.5% of the general population (aged 18 or older) reported symptoms linking play to possible addictive behaviour—less than half of recently reported rates for gambling. They warn that researchers studying the potential “darker sides” of Internet-based games must be cautious. Extrapolating from their data, as many as a million American adults might meet the proposed DSM-5 criteria for addiction to online games—representing a large cohort of people struggling with what could be clinically dysregulated behaviour. However, because the authors found no evidence supporting a clear link to clinical outcomes, they warn that more evidence for clinical and behavioural effects is needed before concluding that this is a legitimate candidate for inclusion in future revisions of the DSM. If adopted, Internet gaming disorder would vie for limited therapeutic resources with a range of serious psychiatric disorders. Read the full article: Andrew K. Przybylski, Netta Weinstein, Kou Murayama (2016) Internet Gaming Disorder: Investigating the Clinical Relevance of a New Phenomenon.…