The increasing sophistication of gambling products afforded by electronic technologies facilitates increased accessibility to gambling, as well as encouraging rapid and continuous play. This poses several challenges from a responsible gambling perspective, in terms of facilitating player self-awareness and self-control. The same technological advancements in gambling that may facilitate a loss of control may also be used to provide responsible gambling tools and solutions to reduce gambling-related harm. Indeed, several harm-minimisation strategies have been devised that aim to facilitate self-awareness and self-control within a gambling session. Such strategies include the use of breaks in play, ‘pop-up’ messaging, limit setting, and behavioural tracking. The present paper reviews the theoretical argument underpinning the application of specific harm-minimisation tools, as well as providing one of the first critical reviews of the empirical research assessing their efficacy, in terms of influencing gambling cognitions and behaviour.

Internet technology has facilitated the use of a wide variety of different activities and applications in online contexts. Despite a large amount of research regarding these activities including online social networking, online gaming, online shopping, online sex, and online gambling, very little is known regarding online eating shows called 'mukbang' (i.e. a portmanteau of the South Korean words for 'eating' ['meokneun'] and 'broadcast' ['bangsong'] that refers to online broadcasts where individuals eat food and interact with the viewers). The present study carried out a scoping review of the academic and non-academic literature (i.e. peer-reviewed publications, academic theses, and the print media) in order to examine the psychological characteristics of mukbang viewers and consequences of mukbang watching. A total of 11 academic outputs from different disciplinary fields (mainly peer-reviewed papers) and 20 articles from national UK newspapers were identified following an extensive literature search. Results from the scoping review indicated that viewers use mukbang watching for social reasons, sexual reasons, entertainment, eating reasons, and/or as an escapist compensatory strategy. Furthermore, mukbang watching appears to have both beneficial consequences (e.g., diminishing feelings of loneliness and social isolation, constructing a virtual social community,) and non-beneficial consequences (e.g., altering food preferences, eating habits, and table manners, promoting disordered eating, potential excess, and 'addiction'). Implications of the study and directions for future research are also discussed.

Marketing and advertising play a significant role in the adoption of attitudes and societal norms, which have been shown to have a direct impact on behavioural intentions, ultimately leading to behavioural execution. Concurrent with other attempts to inform policy strategy with respect to harm minimisation in gambling there is a paucity of evidence pertaining to the impact that gambling advertising has on gambling behaviour, gambling-related harm, and the efficacy of advertising regulations to minimise harm. There appears to be an overwhelming portrayal of gambling as a normative, legitimate social activity, at the expense of highlighting the potential risks involved. Furthermore, new marketing techniques utilising the social media platform are able to instil emotive and positive attitudes towards gambling brands and products, as well as enabling consumers to widely share and recommend gambling products across their online community, sometimes exposing under-age and vulnerable populations to gambling. The following paper critically reviews existing research investigating the impact of current gambling advertising and marketing campaigns on both vulnerable (i.e. adolescents and problem gamblers) and normal adult populations, looking specifically at the impact of exposure, the positive framing of gambling, and the transparency of marketing techniques. It is concluded that marketing and advertising in gambling needs to facilitate more informed choice for consumers, and a more balanced approach in the framing of gambling. It is suggested that risk information is presented asynchronously to gambling promotions, as opposed to being delivered as peripheral information, and moreover future strategies need to be based on robust empirical evidence demonstrating the impact of responsible gambling advertising and marketing on behaviour.

Recent literature has speculated that some individuals spend lots of time watching mukbang (i.e., combination of the South Korean words 'eating' ['meokneun'] and 'broadcast' ['bangsong'] that refers to eating broadcasts where a person eats a large portion of food on camera whilst interacting with viewers) and compensate different needs using this activity. However, compensating unattained offline needs using a specific online activity could lead to the addictive use of that activity. The present study investigated problematic mukbang watching by developing and validating the Mukbang Addiction Scale (MAS). An online survey was administered to 236 university students (M age = 20.50 years; 62% female) who had watched mukbang at least once. Construct validity, criterion validity, and reliability analyses indicated that the MAS had good psychometric properties. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the unidimensional structure of the scale. The Cronbach's alpha (α = .95) and composite reliability (CR = .92) suggested that the MAS had excellent internal consistency. Latent class analyses (LCA) revealed two primary profiles, one with high endorsement and one with low endorsement of the items assessed. Item response theory (IRT) findings also indicated a good model fit. IRT findings provisionally supported a cutoff scale raw score of 22 (out of 30). Assessment and clinical-related implications of the findings are illustrated in accordance with other excessive behaviours.

Conceptually, there is a common association between gambling games with fast speeds of play and problem gambling. This relationship however, is largely correlational in nature, which comes at the expense of carefully controlled empirical investigation. Research that does exist aimed towards investigating the impact of gambling speeds on psychological and behavioural factors, is in its relative infancy, and the research possesses disparate methodologies and variables of interest. The aims of the current review is therefore to evaluate and summarise the existing body of evidence relating to speed of play in gambling, as well as discuss how this evidence can be used to inform harm minimisation approaches aimed at facilitating self-control during gambling. Eleven studies were selected for review based on the inclusion criteria, comprising nine experimental and two qualitative studies (one self-report focus group study and one observational study). There was a consistent finding across studies that games with faster speeds of play were preferred and rated as more exciting for all gamblers, ranging from non-problem to problem gamblers. Of concern, was the repeated finding that fast games are particularly appealing to those suffering with a gambling problem. Behavioural results were more inconsistent across studies, though the general trend supports the notion that games with faster speeds of play encourage more wagers, longer game play, and caused players, particularly problem gamblers, to experience difficulty in ceasing gambling. The implications of these findings for gambling policy, harm minimisation approaches, and future research are discussed.

Emotions typically exert powerful, enduring, and often predictable influences over decision-making. However, emotion-based decision-making is seen as a mediator of impulsive and reckless gambling behaviour, where emotion may be seen as the antithesis of controlled and rational decision-making, a proposition supported by recent neuroimaging evidence. The present paper argues that the same emotional mechanisms can be used to influence a gambler to cease gambling, by focusing their emotional decision-making on positive external and personally relevant factors, such as familial impact or longer term financial factors. Emotionally stimulating messages may also have the advantage of capturing attention above and beyond traditionally responsible gambling messaging. This is important given the highly emotionally aroused states often experienced by both gamblers and problem gamblers, where attentional activation thresholds for external stimuli such as messages may be increased.

Loss-chasing is a central feature of problematic gambling, yet it remains a poorly conceived and understood concept. Loss-chasing is believed to stem from an erosion of cognitive control when gambling. The opportunity to gamble at significantly disparate stake sizes on a gambling activity is considered to be a risk factor for loss-chasing. This study investigated the impact of gambling at disparate stake sizes on executive processes integral to maintaining cognitive control when gambling, namely response inhibition and reflection impulsivity. Frequent adult non-problem gamblers (n = 32) participated in a repeated measures experiment; and gambled at three disparate stake sizes (£20, £2 and no stake per bet) on a simulated gambling task. Participants' response inhibition performance and reflection impulsivity levels after gambling at various stake sizes were compared via a go/no-go task and information sampling task, respectively. Quality of decision-making i.e. the evaluation of available information to make probability judgements was impaired after gambling at higher stakes in comparison to lower stakes, indicating an increase in reflection impulsivity. No effect on response inhibition was observed. Although exploratory, this suggests that the opportunity for participants to substantially increase stake size on a gambling activity may be a risk factor for impaired cognitive performance when gambling, and perhaps create vulnerability for within-session loss-chasing in some players.

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