The Relationship Between Structural Game Characteristics and Gambling Behavior: A Population-Level Study

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the structural characteristics and gambling behavior among video lottery terminal (VLT) gamblers. The study was ecological valid, because the data consisted of actual gambling behavior registered in the participants natural gambling environment without intrusion by researchers. Online behavioral tracking data from Multix, an eight game video lottery terminal, were supplied by Norsk-Tipping (the state owned gambling company in Norway). The sample comprised the entire population of Multix gamblers (N = 31,109) who had gambled in January 2010. The individual number of bets made across games was defined as the dependent variable, reward characteristics of a game (i.e., payback percentage, hit frequency, size of winnings and size of jackpot) and bet characteristics of a game (i.e., range of betting options and availability of advanced betting options) served as the independent variables. Control variables were age and gender. Two separate cross-classified multilevel random intercepts models were used to analyze the relationship between bets made, reward characteristics and bet characteristics, where the number of bets was nested within both individuals and within games. The results show that the number of bets is positively associated with payback percentage, hit frequency, being female and age, and negatively associated with size of wins and range of available betting options. In summary, the results show that the reward characteristics and betting options explained 27 % and 15 % of the variance in the number of bets made, respectively. It is concluded that structural game characteristics affect gambling behavior. Implications of responsible gambling are discussed.

Gambling on Smartphones: A Study of a Potentially Addictive Behaviour in a Naturalistic Setting

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An Overview of Structural Characteristics in Problematic Video Game Playing

“…One way forward in the field would be for gaming operators to provide access to real-time behavioral tracking data of players so that researchers can conduct secondary analysis of player behavior in relation to specific in-game structural characteristics. This has already started to happen in the gambling studies field with analyses of the impact of structural and situational characteristics on the behavior of slot machine players [ 77 , 78 ].…”

An empirical real-world study of losses disguised as wins in electronic gaming machines

“…By electronically tracking and recording gambling behaviour, researchers non-intrusively obtain data from large gambling populations. Several gambling studies have now utilized account-based player gambling data (Leino et al, 2014;Ma, Kim, & Kim, 2014;Narayanan & Manchanda, 2012;Smith, Levere, & Kurtzman, 2009). Through the use of account-based gambling data, it has been found that gambling behaviour is associated with structural game characteristics (Leino et al, 2014), immediate and long-term gains and losses (Ma et al, 2014;Narayanan & Manchanda, 2012), subsequent gambling style after big wins and losses (Smith et al, 2009) and the decision to close a gambling account due to gambling-related problems (Xuan & Shaffer, 2009).…”