Abstract
Although most gamblers set a monetary limit on their play, many exceed this limit—an antecedent of problematic gambling. Responsible gambling tools may assist players to gamble within their means. Historically, however, the impact of such tools has been assessed in isolation. In the current research, two responsible gambling tools that target adherence to a monetary limit were assessed among 72 electronic gaming machine (EGM) players. Participants watched an educational animation explaining how EGMs work (or a neutral video) and then played an EGM in a virtual reality environment. All participants were asked to set a monetary limit on their play, but only half were reminded when that limit was reached. Results showed that both the animation and pop-up limit reminder helped gamblers stay within their preset monetary limit; however, an interaction qualified these main effects. Among participants who did not experience the pop-up reminder, those who watched the animation stayed within their preset monetary limits more than those who did not watch the animation. For those who were reminded of their limit, however, there was no difference in limit adherence between those who watched the animation and those who did not watch the animation. From a responsible gambling perspective, the current study suggests that there is no additive effect of exposure to both responsible gambling tools. Therefore, for minimal disruption in play, a pop-up message reminding gamblers of their preset monetary limit might be preferred over the lengthier educational animation.
Highlights
Liberalization of gambling policies and cross-jurisdictional competition has led to significant global increases in gambling in both land-based and Internet forms
We showed that the pro-responsible gambling effect of the educational animation on limit adherence obtained by Wohl et al (2010) was not due to motivated recall among those who viewed the animation
We showed that participants who were exposed to a monetary limit pop-up reminder during electronic gaming machine (EGM) play were more aware of when they had reached their limit than participants who were not exposed to a reminder
Summary
Liberalization of gambling policies and cross-jurisdictional competition has led to significant global increases in gambling in both land-based and Internet forms. A key strategy for promoting responsible gambling is setting a monetary limit on play (i.e., how much money can be lost in a given session; Brown and Newby-Clark 2005; Gollwitzer et al 2004). This is because many gamblers have a problem limiting the money they spend on gambling. The need to promote monetary limit adherence is especially important as failure to do so increases alongside symptoms of pathological gambling (Nower and Blaszczynski 2010; Schellinck and Schrans 2002; Wohl et al 2010), which is in turn associated with a wide range of problems including psychological distress and comorbid disorders, poor health, employment difficulties, family breakdown, crime, and suicide (see Neal et al 2005). In Australia alone, problematic gambling is estimated to yield social costs of AUD$4.7 billion annually (Productivity Commission 2010)
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