Controlling the illusion of control: a grounded theory of sports betting advertising in the UK

Abstract

Sports betting (SB) advertising has arguably permeated contemporary sport consumption in many countries. SB adverts build narratives that represent situations and characters that normalise betting behaviour, and raise public concerns regarding their detrimental effect on vulnerable groups. Adopting a grounded theory approach, the present study examined a British sample of SB adverts (N=102) from 2014 to 2016. The analysis revealed that individual themes aligned in a single core narrative, constructing a dual persuasive strategy of SB advertising: (i) to reduce the perceived risk involved in betting (with themes such as betting with betting with friends, free money offers, humour, or the use of celebrities) while (ii) enhancing the perceived control of bettors (including themes of masculinity, and sport knowledge). Also, new technological features of SB platforms (e.g. live betting or cash outs) were used by adverts to build a narrative in which the ability to predict a sport outcome was overlapped by the ability of bettors to use those platforms, equalising the ease of betting with the ease of winning. Based on the data analysed, it is concluded that the construction of a magnified idea of control in SB advertising is a cause for concern requiring close regulatory scrutiny.

The perceived influence of sports betting marketing techniques on disordered gamblers in treatment

“…Here winners' receipts on social media reiterate the missed opportunity thinking, fuelling hindsight bias. The strategy of hindsight bias was also found in an analysis of sports betting advertisements from Spain and the UK (Lopez-Gonzalez, Estévez, & Griffiths, 2018a). A responsible marketing approach would minimise the use of cognitive biases.…”

“…These include messages that depict gambling as (i) a legitimate source of wealth, (ii) an investment product, and (iii) an alternative to employment. This has paved the way for more fun-centred messages that introduce sports betting as a game of skill while reducing its chance components (Lopez-Gonzalez, Estévez, & Griffiths, 2018a;2018b). Repeated exposure over time to sports betting advertising narratives depict normative representations, including how much money a 'normal' bettor stakes, in which location, accompanied by whom, and/or accepting which odds (Lopez-Gonzalez, Guerrero-Solé, .…”

Internet-Based Structural Characteristics of Sports Betting and Problem Gambling Severity: Is There a Relationship?

“…This type of feature of mobile phone gambling is likely to affect the Bschedule of reinforcement^ (James et al 2017), in this context, the timing and interval between play and reward (Griffiths and Auer 2013). Correspondingly, it has been noted that bookmakers promote mobile betting over other forms of gambling in their advertisements ) by means of overemphasizing the illusion of control that gamblers perceive when using their smartphones to bet (Lopez-Gonzalez et al 2017a). …”

“…Live features of sports betting such as in-play betting and Bcash out^betting have been argued to make sports bettors more vulnerable to cognitive biases (Lopez-Gonzalez et al 2017a;. In an experiment with 161 sports bettors from France, participants with time constraints in placing their bets resorted more frequently to heuristic processing instead of analytical processing, leading to theoretically less reasonable bets (d 'Astous and Di Gaspero 2015).…”

Customization and Personalization of Sports Betting Products: Implications for Responsible Gambling

“…If the zero contingency relationship between customization and gambling outcome is not clearly explained by service providers, or understood by consumers, it might result in a case of illusory correlation, that is, a cognitive distortion that enhances the illusion of control among gamblers [23] . Within the broader scope of sports betting advertising, which typically resorts to narratives that emphasize the perceived control of bettors over their outcome of their bets [24] , particularly when accentuating the influence of technology [25] , customization options that are performed within bookmakers' gambling platforms and mobile sites are likely to be interpreted as providers of greater control for bettors. In the final section, a case study to illustrate this tendency is discussed.…”